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DRUGGING  A  NATION 


H.  E.  TONGSHAO-I 

One  of  the  Leaders  of  the  Opium  Reform 

Movement  in  China 


Drugging  a  Nation 

The   Story  of  China 
and  the  Opium  Curse 


A  Personal  Investigation,  during  an 
Extended  Tour,  of  the  Present  Con- 
ditions of  the  Opium  Trade  in  China 
and  Its  Effects  upon  the  Nation 


By 
SAMUEL  MERWIN 


NEW  YORK        CHICAGO         TORONTO 
Fleming  H.   Revell   Company 

LONDON        AND       EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1908,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1907-1908,  by 
SUCCESS    COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  ai  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


NOTE 

THESE  chapters  were  originally  published 
during  1907  and  1908  in  Success  Maga- 
zine. Though  frankly  journalistic  in 
tone,  the  book  presents  something  more  than  the 
hasty  conclusions  of  a  journalist.  During  its 
preparation  the  author  travelled  around  the  world, 
inquiring  into  the  problem  at  first  hand  in  China 
and  in  England,  reading  all  available  printed  mat- 
ter which  seemed  to  bear  in  any  way  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  interviewing  several  hundred  gentlemen 
who  have  had  special  opportunities  to  study  the 
problem  from  various  standpoints.  The  writing 
was  not  begun  until  this  preliminary  work  was 
completed  and  the  natural  conclusions  had  be- 
come convictions  in  the  author's  mind. 


CONTENTS 

I.  CHINA'S  PREDICAMENT    .        .        .        9 

II.  THE  GOLDEN  OPIUM  DAYS      .        .      20 

III.  A  GLIMPSE  INTO  AN  OPIUM  PROV- 

INCE .        .        .        •        •  53 

IV.  CHINA'S  SINCERITY         ...      70 

V.  SOWING    THE    WIND    IN   CHINA — 

SHANGHAI  .        .        .        .        .     101 

VI.  SOWING    THE    WIND    IN   CHINA — 

TIENTSIN  AND  HONGKONG    .        .129 

VII.  How     BRITISH     CHICKENS     CAME 

HOME  TO  ROOST        .        .        .     154 

VIII.  THE  POSITION  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN   .     178 
APPENDIX 204 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  page 

H.  E.  TONG  SHAO-I  .         .        .        ,         .  Title 

KNEADING    CRUDE   OPIUM    WITH    OIL   TO    MAKE 

ROUND  OR  FLAT  CAKES       .          .         .  27 

MAKING  ROUND  CAKES  OF  OPIUM  .  .  .  27 
THE  OPIUM  HULKS  OF  SHANGHAI  .  .  50 

AN    OPIUM    RECEIVING    SHIP  OR  "  GODOWN  "  AT 

SHANGHAI 50 

THE  VILLAGES  WERE    LITTLE  MORE  THAN  HEAPS 

OF  RUINS  .......       54. 

AT  LAST  HE  CRAWLS  OUT  ON  THE  HIGHWAY, 
WHINING,  CHATTERING  AND  PRAYING  THAT  A 
FEW  COPPER  CASH  BE  THROWN  HIM  .  .  54 

WRECK  AND  RUIN  IN  CHINA  ....  68 
ENFORCING  THE  EDICT  AT  SHANGHAI  ...  88 
IN  AN  OPIUM  DEN,  SHANGHAI  .  .  .  .114 
OPIUM-SMOKING  .  .  .  «  .  .  114 

WEIGHING  OPIUM  IN  A   GOVERNMENT  FACTORY  IN 

INDIA        .          .         .         .         .     •    .         .      154 

WHERE  THE  CHINAMAN  TRAVELS,  OPIUM  TRAVELS 

TOO  ,  ,          .  .  .  .  ,  .       172 


Drugging  a  Nation 


CHINA'S  PREDICAMENT 

IN    September,    1906,  an  edict    was  issued 
from  the  Imperial  Court  at  Peking  which 
states  China's  predicament  with  naivete  and 
vigour. 

"  The  cultivation  of  the  poppy,"  runs  the  edict, 
in  the  authorized  translation,  "  is  the  greatest 
iniquity  in  agriculture,  and  the  provinces  of 
Szechuen,  Shensi,  Kansu,  Yunnan,  Kweichow, 
Shansi,  and  Kanghuai  abound  in  its  product, 
which,  in  fact,  is  found  everywhere.  Now  that 
it  is  decided  to  abandon  opium  smoking  within 
ten  years,  the  limiting  of  this  cultivation  should 
be  taken  as  a  fundamental  step  .  .  .  opium 
has  been  in  use  so  long  by  the  people  that  nearly 
three-tenths  or  four-tenths  of  them  are  smokers." 
"  Three'-tenths  or  four-tenths  "  of  the  Chinese 
people, — one  hundred  and  fifty  million  opium- 
smokers — mean  three  or  four  times  the  popula- 
9 


1O  Drugging  a  Nation 

tion  of  Great  Britain,  a  good  many  more  than 
the  population  of  the  United  States  ! 

The  Chinese  are  notoriously  inexact  in  statis- 
tical matters.  The  officials  who  drew  up  the  edict 
probably  wished  to  convey  the  impression  that 
the  situation  is  really  grave,  and  employed  this 
form  of  statement  in  order  to  give  force  to  the 
document.  No  accurate  estimate  of  the  number 
of  opium  victims  in  China  is  obtainable ;  but  it  is 
possible  to  combine  the  impressions  which  have 
been  set  down  by  reliable  observers  in  different 
parts  of  the  "  Middle  Kingdom,"  and  thus  to  ar- 
rive at  a  fair,  general  impression  of  the  truth. 
The  following,  for  example,  from  Mr.  Alexander 
Hosie,  the  commercial  attache  to  the  British 
legation  at  Peking,  should  carry  weight.  He  is 
reporting  on  conditions  in  Szechuen  Province : 

"  I  am  well  within  the  mark  when  I  say  that 
in  the  cities  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  males  and  twenty 
per  cent,  of  the  females  smoke  opium,  and  that 
in  the  country  the  percentage  is  not  less  than 
twenty-five  for  men  and  five  per  cent,  for  women." 
There  are  about  forty-two  million  people  in 
Szechuen  Province ;  and  they  not  only  raise  and 
consume  a  very  great  quantity  of  opium,  they 
also  send  about  twenty  thousand  tons  down  the 


China's  Predicament  il 

Yangtse  River  every  year  for  use  in  other  prov* 
inces.  The  report  of  other  travellers,  merchants, 
and  official  investigators  indicate  that  about  all 
of  the  richest  soil  in  Szechuen  is  given  over  to 
poppy  cultivation,  and  that  the  labouring  classes 
show  a  noticeable  decline  of  late  in  physique  and 
capacity  for  work. 

In  regard  to  another  so-called  "  opium  prov- 
ince," Yunnan,  we  have  the  following  statement : 
"  I  saw  practically  the  whole  population  given 
over  to  its  abuse.  The  ravages  it  is  making  in 
men,  women,  and  children  are  deplorable.  .  .  . 
I  was  quite  able  to  realize  that  any  one  who  had 
seen  the  wild  abuse  of  opium  in  Yunnan  would 
have  a  wild  abhorrence  of  it." 

In  later  chapters  we  shall  go  into  the  matter 
more  at  length.  Here  let  me  add  to  these  state- 
ments merely  a  few  typical  scraps  of  infor- 
mation, selected  from  a  bundle  of  note-books  full 
of  records  of  chats  and  interviews  with  travellers 
of  almost  every  nationality  and  of  almost  every 
station  in  life.  The  secretary  of  a  life  insurance 
company  which  does  a  considerable  business  up 
and  down  the  coast  told  me  that,  roughly,  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  Chinese  who  apply  for  insurance 
are  opium-smokers.  Another  bit  comes  from  a 


12  Drugging  a  Nation 

man  who  lived  for  several  years  in  an  inland  city 
of  a  quarter  of  a  million  inhabitants.  The  local 
Anti-opium  League  had  750  members,  he  said 
and  he  believed  that  about  every  other  man  in 
the  city  was  a  smoker.  "  It  is  practically  a  case 
of  everybody  smoking,"  he  concluded. 

Twenty-five  years  ago,  when  the  consumption 
of  opium  in  China  could  hardly  have  been  more 
than  half  what  it  is  to-day,  a  British  consul  esti- 
mated the  proportion  of  smokers  in  the  region 
he  had  visited  as  follows  :  "  Labourers  and  small 
farmers,  ten  per  cent. ;  small  shopkeepers,  twenty 
per  cent. ;  soldiers,  thirty  per  cent. ;  merchants, 
eighty  per  cent. ;  officials  and  their  staff,  ninety 
per  cent. ;  actors,  prostitutes,  vagrants,  thieves, 
ninety-five  per  cent."  The  labourers  and  farmers, 
the  real  strength  of  China,  as  of  every  other  land, 
had  not  yet  been  overwhelmed — but  they  were 
going  under,  even  then.  The  most  startling 
news  to-day  is  from  these  lower  classes,  even 
from  the  country  villages,  the  last  to  give  way. 
Dr.  Parker,  the  American  Methodist  missionary 
at  Shanghai,  informed  me  that  reports  to  this 
effect  were  coming  in  steadily  from  up  country ; 
and  during  my  own  journey  I  heard  the  same  bad 
news  almost  everywhere  along  a  route  which 


China's  Predicament  13 

measured,  before  I  left  China,  something  more 
than  four  thousand  miles. 

Perhaps  the  most  convincing  summing  up  of 
China's  predicament  is  found  in  another  transla- 
tion from  a  recent  Chinese  document,  this  time 
an  appeal  to  the  throne  from  four  viceroys.  The 
quaintness  of  the  language  does  not,  I  think,  im- 
pair its  effectiveness  and  its  power  as  a  protest : 
"  China  can  never  become  strong  and  stand 
shoulder  and  shoulder  with  the  powers  of  the 
world  unless  she  can  get  rid  of  the  habit  of  opium- 
smoking  by  her  subjects,  about  one  quarter  of 
whom  have  been  reduced  to  skeletons  and  look 
half-dead." 

This  then  is  the  curse  which  the  imperial  gov- 
ernment has  talked  so  quaintly  of  "  abandoning." 
This  is  the  debauchery  which  is  to  be  put  down 
by  officials,  ninety  per  cent,  of  whom  were  sup- 
posed to  be  more  or  less  confirmed  smokers. 
Such  almost  childlike  optimism  brings  to  mind  a 
certain  Sunday  in  New  York  City  when  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  with  the  whole  police  force  under  his 
orders,  tried  to  close  the  saloons.  It  brings  to 
mind  other  attempts  in  Europe  and  America, 
to  check  and  control  vice  and  depravity — at- 
tempts which  have  never,  I  think,  been  wholly 


14  Drugging  a  Nation 

successful — and  one  begins  to  understand  the  dis- 
couraging immensity  of  the  task  which  China  has 
undertaken.  Really,  to  "  stop  using  opium " 
would  mean  a  very  rearranging  of  the  agricul- 
tural plan  of  the  empire.  It  would  make  neces- 
sary an  immediate  solution  of  China's  transporta- 
tion problem  (no  other  crop  is  so  easy  to  carry 
as  opium)  and  an  almost  complete  reconstruction 
of  the  imperial  finances ;  indeed,  few  observers 
are  so  glib  as  to  suggest  offhand  a  substitute  for 
the  immense  opium  revenue  to  the  Chinese  gov- 
ernment. And  nobody  to  accomplish  all  this 
but  those  sodden  officials,  of  whom  it  is  safe  to 
guess  that  fifty  per  cent,  have  some  sort  or  other 
of  a  financial  stake  in  the  traffic  ! 

In  the  minds  of  most  of  us,  I  think,  there  has 
been  a  vague  notion  that  the  Chinese  have  al- 
ways smoked  opium,  that  opium  is  in  some  pe- 
culiar way  a  necessity  to  the  Chinese  constitution. 
Even  among  those  who  know  the  extraordinary 
history  of  this  morbidly  fascinating  vegetable 
product,  who  know  that  the  India-grown  British 
drug  was  pushed  and  smuggled  and  bayoneted 
into  China  during  a  century  of  desperate  protest 
and  even  armed  resistance  from  these  yellow 
people,  it  has  been  a  popular  argument  to  assert 


China's  Predicament  15 

that  the  Chinese  have  only  themselves  to  blame 
for  the  "  demand  "  that  made  the  trade  possible. 
Of  this  "  demand,"  and  of  how  it  was  worked  up 
by  Christian  traders,  we  shall  speak  at  some 
length  in  later  chapters.  "  Educational  methods  " 
in  the  extending  of  trade  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  originated  with  the  modern  trust.  The 
curious  fact  is  that  the  Chinese  didn't  use  opium 
and  didn't  want  opium. 

Your  true  opium-smoker  stretches  himself  on 
a  divan  and  gives  up  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  to 
preparing  his  thimbleful  of  the  brown  drug. 
When  it  has  been  heated  and  worked  to  the 
proper  consistency,  he  places  it  in  the  tiny  bowl 
of  his  pipe,  holds  it  over  a  lamp,  and  draws  a 
few  whiffs  of  the  smoke  deep  into  his  lungs.  It 
seems,  at  first,  a  trivial  thing ;  indeed,  the  man 
who  is  well  fed  and  properly  housed  and  clothed 
seems  able  to  keep  it  up  for  a  considerable  time 
and  without  appreciable  ill  results.  The  greater 
difficulty  in  China  is,  of  course,  that  very  few 
opium-smokers  are  well  fed  and  properly  housed 
and  clothed. 

I  heard  little  about  the  beautiful  dreams  and 
visions  which  opium  is  supposed  to  bring;  all  the 
smokers  with  whom  I  talked  could  be  roughly 


l6  Drugging  a  Nation 

divided  into  two  classes — those  who  smoked  in 
order  to  relieve  pain  or  misery,  and  those  miser- 
able victims  who  smoked  to  relieve  the  acute 
physical  distress  brought  on  by  the  opium  itself. 
Probably  the  majority  of  the  victims  take  it  up  as 
a  temporary  relief;  many  begin  in  early  child- 
hood ;  the  mother  will  give  the  baby  a  whiff  to 
stop  its  crying.  It  is  a  social  vice  only  among 
the  upper  classes.  The  most  notable  outward 
effect  of  this  indulgence  is  the  resulting  physical 
weakness  and  lassitude.  The  opium-smoker  can- 
not work  hard  ;  he  finds  it  difficult  to  apply  his 
mind  to  a  problem  or  his  body  to  a  task.  As 
the  habit  becomes  firmly  fastened  on  him,  there 
is  a  perceptible  weakening  of  his  moral  fibre ;  he 
shows  himself  unequal  to  emergencies  which 
make  any  sudden  demand  upon  him.  If  opium 
is  denied  him,  he  will  lie  and  steal  in  order  to  ob- 
tain it. 

Opium-smoking  is  a  costly  vice.  A  pipefull 
of  a  moderately  good  native  product  costs  more 
than  a  labourer  can  earn  in  a  day ;  consequently 
the  poorer  classes  smoke  an  unspeakable  com- 
pound based  on  pipe  scrapings  and  charcoal. 
Along  the  highroads  the  coolies  even  scrape  the 
grime  from  the  packsaddles  to  mix  with  this 


China's  Predicament  17 

dross.  The  clerk  earning  from  twenty-five  to 
fifty  Mexican  dollars  a  month  will  frequently 
spend  from  ten  to  twenty  dollars  a  month  on 
opium.  The  typical  confirmed  smoker  is  a  man 
who  spends  a  considerable  part  of  the  night  in 
smoking  himself  to  sleep,  and  all  the  next  morn- 
ing in  sleeping  off  the  effects.  If  he  is  able  to 
work  at  all,  it  is  only  during  the  afternoon,  and 
even  at  that  there  will  be  many  days  when  the 
official  or  merchant  is  incompetent  to  conduct 
his  affairs.  Thousands  of  prominent  men  are 
ruined  every  year. 

The  Cantonese  have  what  they  call  "  The  Ten 
Cannots  regarding  The  Opium-Smoker."  "  He 
cannot  (i)  give  up  the  habit;  (2)  enjoy  sleep; 
(3)  wait  for  his  turn  when  sharing  his  pipe  with 
his  friends ;  (4)  rise  early ;  (5)  be  cured  if  sick ; 
(6)  help  relations  in  need ;  (7)  enjoy  wealth  ;  (8) 
plan  anything ;  (9)  get  credit  even  when  an  old 
customer;  (10)  walk  any  distance." 

This  is  the  land  into  which  the  enterprising 
Christian  traders  introduced  opium,  and  into 
which  they  fed  opium  so  persistently  and  forcibly 
that  at  last  a  "  good  market "  was  developed. 
England  did  not  set  out  to  ruin  China.  One 
finds  no  hint  of  a  diabolical  purpose  to  seduce 


18  Drugging  a  Nation 

and  destroy  a  wonderful  old  empire  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world.  The  ruin  worked  was  inciden- 
tal to  that  far  Eastern  trade  of  which  England 
has  been  so  proud.  It  was  the  triumph  of  the 
balance  sheet  over  common  humanity. 

And  so  it  is  to-day.  British  India  still  holds 
the  cream  of  the  trade,  for  the  Chinese  grown 
opium  cannot  compete  in  quality  with  the  Indian 
drug.  The  British  Indian  government  raises  the 
poppy  in  the  rich  Ganges  Valley  (more  than  six 
hundred  thousand  acres  of  poppies  they  raised 
there  last  year),  manufactures  it  in  government 
factories  at  Patna  and  Ghazipur — manufactures 
four-fifths  of  it  especially  to  suit  the  Chinese  taste, 
and  sells  it  at  annual  government  auctions  in 
Calcutta. 

The  result  of  this  traffic  is  so  very  grave  that 
it  is  a  difficult  matter  to  discuss  in  moderate 
language.  To  the  traveller  who  leaves  the  rail- 
road and  steamboat  lines  and  ventures,  in  spring- 
less  native  cart  or  swaying  mule  litter,  along  the 
sunken  roads  and  the  hills  of  western  and  north- 
western China,  the  havoc  and  misery  wrought 
by  the  "  white  man's  smoke,"  the  "  foreign  dust," 
becomes  unpleasantly  evident.  Some  hint  of  the 
meaning  of  it,  a  faint  impression  of  the  terrible 


China's  Predicament  19 

devastation  of  this  drug — let  loose,  as  it  has  been, 
on  a  backward,  poverty-stricken  race — is  seared, 
hour  by  hour  and  day  by  day  into  his  brain. 

A  terrible  drama  is  now  being  enacted  in  the 
Far  East.  The  Chinese  race  is  engaged  in  a 
fight  to  a  finish  with  a  drug — and  the  odds  are 
on  the  drug. 


II 

THE  GOLDEN  OPIUM  DAYS 

IN  the  splendid,  golden  days  of  the  East 
India  Company,  the  great  Warren  Hastings 
put  himself  on  record  in  these  frank  words  : 
"  Opium  is  a  pernicious  article  of  luxury,  which 
ought  not  to  be  permitted  but  for  the  purpose  of 
foreign  commerce  only."  The  new  traffic  prom- 
ised to  solve  the  Indian  fiscal  problem,  if  skill- 
fully managed ;  accordingly,  the  production  and 
manufacture  of  opium  was  made  a  government 
monopoly.  China,  after  all,  was  a  long  way  off 
— and  Chinamen  were  only  Chinamen.  That 
the  East  India  Company  might  be  loosing  an  un- 
controllable monster  not  only  on  China  but  on 
the  world  hardly  occurred  to  the  great  Warren 
Hastings — the  British  chickens  might,  a  century 
later,  come  home  to  roost  in  Australia  and  South 
Africa  was  too  remote  a  possibility  even  for 
speculative  inquiry. 

Now  trade  supports  us,  governs  us,  controls 
our  dependencies,  represents  us  at  foreign  courts, 

20 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  21 

carries  on  our  wars,  signs  our  treaties  of  peace. 
Trade,  like  its  symbol  the  dollar,  is  neither  good 
nor  bad ;  it  has  no  patriotism,  no  morals,  no  hu- 
manity. Its  logic  applies  with  the  same  relent- 
less force  and  precision  to  corn,  cotton,  rice, 
wheat,  human  slaves,  oil,  votes,  opium.  It  is  the 
power  that  drives  human  affairs ;  and  its  law  is 
the  law  of  the  balance  sheet.  So  long  as  any 
commodity  remains  in  the  currents  of  trade  the 
law  of  trade  must  reign,  the  balance  sheet  must 
balance.  It  is  difficult  to  get  a  commodity  into 
these  currents,  but  once  you  have  got  the  com- 
modity in,  you  will  find  it  next  to  impossible  to 
get  it  out.  There  has  been  more  than  one  prime 
minister,  I  fancy,  more  than  one  secretary  of 
state  for  India,  who  has  wished  the  opium  ques- 
tion in  Jericho.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  answer  the 
moral  indignation  of  the  British  empire  with  the 
cynical  statement  that  the  India  government  can- 
not exist  without  that  opium  revenue.  Why,  oh, 
why,  did  not  the  great  Warren  Hastings  develop 
the  cotton  rather  than  the  opium  industry !  But 
the  interesting  fact  is  that  he  did  not.  He 
chose  opium,  and  opium  it  is. 

The  India  Government  Opium  Monopoly  is 
an  import  factor  in  this  extraordinary  story  of  a 


22  Drugging  a  Nation 

debauchery  of  a  third  of  the  human  race  by  the 
most  nearly  Christian  among  Christian  nations. 
We  must  understand  what  it  is  and  how  it  works 
before  we  can  understand  the  narrative  of  that 
greed,  with  its  attendant  smuggling,  bribery  and 
bloodshed  which  has  brought  the  Chinese  em- 
pire to  its  knees.  In  speaking  of  it  as  a  "  mon- 
opoly," I  am  not  employing  a  cant  word  for 
effect.  I  am  not  making  a  case.  That  is  what 
it  is  officially  styled  in  a  certain  blue  book  on 
my  table  which  bears  the  title,  "  Statement  Ex- 
hibiting the  Moral  and  Material  Progress  of  India 
during  the  year  1905-6,"  and  which  was  ordered 
by  the  House  of  Commons,  to  be  printed,  May 
loth,  1907. 

It  is  easy,  with  or  without  evidence,  to  charge 
a  great  corporation  or  a  great  government  with 
inhuman  crimes.  If  the  charge  be  unjust  it  is 
difficult  for  the  corporation  or  the  government  to 
set  itself  right  before  the  people.  Six  truths  can- 
not overtake  one  lie.  That  is  why,  in  this  day 
of  popular  rule,  the  really  irresponsible  power 
that  makes  and  unmakes  history  lies  in  the  hands 
of  the  journalist.  As  the  charge  I  am  bringing 
is  so  serious  as  to  be  almost  unthinkable,  and  as 
I  wish  to  leave  no  loophole  for  the  counter-charge 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  23 

that  I  am  colouring  this  statement,  I  think  I  can 
do  no  better  than  to  lift  my  description  of  the 
Opium  Monopoly  bodily  from  that  rather  pon- 
derous blue  book. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  this  charge,  nothing 
new  in  the  condition  which  invites  it.  It  is 
rather  a  commonplace  old  condition.  Millions 
of  men,  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  have 
taken  it  for  granted,  just  as  men  once  took  piracy 
for  granted,  just  as  men  once  took  the  African 
slave-trade  for  granted,  just  as  men  to-day  take 
the  highly  organized  traffic  in  unfortunate  women 
and  girls  for  granted.  Ask  a  Tory  political  leader 
of  to-day — Mr.  Balfour  say — for  his  opinion  on  the 
opium  question,  and  if  he  thinks  it  worth  his  while 
to  answer  you  at  all  he  will  probably  deal  shortly 
with  you  for  dragging  up  an  absurd  bit  of  fanati- 
cism. For  a  century  or  more,  about  all  the  mis- 
sionaries, and  goodness  knows  how  many  other 
observers,  have  protested  against  this  monstrous 
traffic  in  poison.  Sixty-five  years  ago  Lord  Ash- 
ley (afterwards  Earl  of  Shaftesbury)  agitated  the 
question  in  Parliament.  Fifty  years  ago  he  ob- 
tained from  the  Law  Officers  of  the  Crown  the 
opinion  that  the  opium  trade  was  "  at  variance  " 
with  the  "  spirit  and  intention  "  of  the  treaty  be- 


24  Drugging  a  Nation 

tween  England  and  China.  In  1891,  the  House 
of  Commons  decided  by  a  good  majority  that 
"  the  system  by  which  the  Indian  opium  revenue 
is  raised  is  morally  indefensible."  And  yet,  I 
will  venture  to  believe  that  to  most  of  my  readers, 
British  as  well  as  American,  the  bald  statement 
that  the  British  Indian  government  actually 
manufactures  opium  on  a  huge  scale  in  its  own 
factories  to  suit  the  Chinese  taste  comes  with  the 
force  of  a  shock.  It  is  not  the  sort  of  a  thing  we 
like  to  think  of  as  among  the  activities  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  government.  It  would  seem  to  be 
government  ownership  with  a  vengeance. 

Now,  to  get  down  to  cases,  just  what  this 
Government  Opium  Monopoly  is,  and  just  how 
does  it  work?  An  excerpt  from  the  rather  pon- 
derous blue  book  will  tell  us.  It  may  be  dry,  but 
it  is  official  and  unassailable.  It  is  also  short. 

"  The  opium  revenue  " — thus  the  blue  book — 
"  is  partly  raised  by  a  monopoly  of  the  production 
of  the  drug  in  Bengal  and  the  United  Provinces, 
and  partly  by  the  levy  of  a  duty  on  all  opium 
imported  from  native  states.  ...  In  these 
two  provinces,  the  crop  is  grown  under  the  con- 
trol of  a  government  department,  which  arranges 
the  total  area  which  is  to  be  placed  under  the 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  25 

crop,  with  a  view  to  the  amount  of  opium  re- 
quired." 

So  much  for  the  broader  outline.  Now  for  a 
few  of  the  details : 

"  The  cultivator  of  opium  in  these  monopoly 
districts  receives  a  license,  and  is  granted  ad- 
vances to  enable  him  to  prepare  the  land  for  the 
crop,  and  he  is  required  to  deliver  the  whole  of 
the  product  at  a  fixed  price  to  opium  agents,  by 
whom  it  is  dispatched  to  the  government  factories 
at  Patna  and  Ghazipur." 

This  money  advanced  to  the  cultivator  bears 
no  interest.  The  British  Indian  government 
lends  money  without  interest  in  no  other  cases. 
Producers  of  crops  other  than  opium  are  obliged 
to  get  along  without  free  money. 

When  it  has  been  manufactured,  the  opium 
must  be  disposed  of  in  one  way  and  another ; 
accordingly : 

"  The  supply  of  prepared  opium  required  for 
consumption  in  India  is  made  over  to  the  Excise 
Department.  .  .  .  The  chests  of  '  provision ' 
opium,  for  export,  are  sold  by  auction  at  monthly 
sales,  which  take  place  at  Calcutta."  For  the 
meaning  of  the  curious  term,  "  provision  opium," 
we  have  only  to  read  on  a  little  further.  °  The 


26  Drugging  a  Nation 

opium  is  received  and  prepared  at  the  govern- 
ment factories,  where  the  out-turn  for  the  year 
included  8,774  chests  of  opium  for  the  Excise 
Department,  about  300  pounds  of  various  opium 
alkaloids,  thirty  maunds  of  medical  opium,  and 
51, 770  chests  of  provision  opium  for  the  Chinese 
market."  There  are  about  140  pounds  in  a  chest. 
FoUi  grains  of  opium,  administered  in  one  dose 
to  a  person  unaccustomed  to  its  use,  is  apt  to 
prove  fatal. 

Last  year  the  government  had  under  poppy 
cultivation  654,928  acres.  And  the  revenue  to 
the  treasury,  including  returns  from  auction  sales, 
duties,  and  license  fees,  and  deducting  all  "  opium 
expenditures,"  was  nearly  $22,000,000  (£4,486,- 
562). 

The  best  grade  of  opium-poppy  bears  a  white 
blossom.  One  sees  mauve  and  pink  tints  in  a 
field,  at  blossom-time,  but  only  the  seeds  from  the 
white  flowers  are  replanted.  The  opium  of  com- 
merce is  made  from  the  gum  obtained  by  gash- 
ing the  green  seed  pod  with  a  four-bladed  knife. 
After  the  first  gathering,  the  sod  is  gashed  a 
second  time,  and  the  gum  that  exudes  makes  an 
inferior  quality  of  opium.  The  raw  opium  from 
the  country  districts  is  sent  down  to  the  govern- 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  27 

ment  factories  in  earthenware  jars,  worked  up  in 
mixing  vats,  and  made  into  balls  about  six  or 
eight  inches  in  diameter.  The  balls,  after  a 
thorough  drying  on  wooden  racks,  are  packed  in 
chests  and  sent  down  to  the  auction. 

The  men  who  buy  in  the  opium  at  these 
monthly  auctions  and  afterwards  dispose  of  it  at 
the  Chinese  ports  are  a  curious  crowd  of  Parsees, 
Mohammedans,  Hindoos,  and  Asiatic  Jews. 
Few  British  names  appear  in  the  opium  trade  to- 
day. British  dignity  prefers  not  to  stoop  beneath 
the  taking  in  of  profits ;  it  leaves  the  details  of  a 
dirty  business  to  dirty  hands.  This  is  as  it  has 
been  from  the  first.  The  directors  of  the  East 
India  Company,  years  and  years  before  that 
splendid  corporation  relinquished  the  actual 
government  of  India,  forbade  the  sending  of  its 
specially-prepared  opium  direct  to  China,  and 
advised  a  trading  station  on  the  coast  whence  the 
drug  might  find  its  way,  "  without  the  company 
being  exposed  to  the  disgrace  of  being  engaged 
in  an  illicit  commerce." 

So  clean  hands  and  dirty  hands  went  into  part- 
nership. They  are  in  partnership  still,  save  that 
the  most  nearly  Christian  of  governments  has 
officially  succeeded  the  company  as  party  of  the 


28  Drugging  a  Nation 

first  part.    And  sixty-five  tons  of  Indian  opium 
go  to  China  every  week. 

As  soon  as  the  shipments  of  opium  have 
reached  Hongkong  and  Shanghai  (I  am  quoting 
now  in  part  from  a  straightforward  account  by 
the  Rev.  T.  G.  Selby),  they  are  broken  up  and 
pass  in  the  ordinary  courses  of  trade  into  the 
hands  of  retail  dealers.  The  opium  balls  are 
stripped  of  the  dried  leaves  in  which  they  have 
been  packed,  torn  like  paste  dumplings  into  frag- 
ments, put  into  an  iron  pan  filled  with  water  and 
boiled  over  a  slow  fire.  Various  kinds  of  opium 
are  mixed  with  each  other,  and  some  shops  ac- 
quire a  reputation  for  their  ingenious  and  taste- 
ful blends.  After  the  opium  has  been  boiled  to 
about  the  consistency  of  coal  tar  or  molasses,  it 
is  put  into  jars  and  sold  for  daily  consumption  in 
quantities  ranging  from  the  fiftieth  part  of  an 
ounce  to  four  or  five  ounces.  "  I  am  sorry  to 
say,"  observes  Mr.  Selby,  "that  the  colonial 
governments  of  Hongkong  and  Singapore,  not 
content  with  the  revenue  drawn  from  this  article 
by  the  Anglo-Indian  government,  have  made 
opium  boiling  a  monopoly  of  the  Crown,  and  a 
large  slice  of  the  revenue  of  these  two  Eastern  de- 
pendencies is  secured  by  selling  the  exclusive 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  29 

rights    to    farm    this    industry    to   the    highest 
bidder." 

The  most  Mr.  Clean  Hands  has  been  able  to 
say  for  himself  is  that,  "  Opium  is  a  fiscal,  not  a 
moral  question  ;  "  or  this,  that  "  In  the  present 
state  of  the  revenue  of  India,  it  does  not  appear 
advisable  to  abandon  so  important  a  source  of 
revenue."  After  all,  China  is  a  long  way  off. 
So  much  for  Mr.  Clean  Hands  !  His  partner, 
Dirty  Hands,  is  more  interesting.  It  is  he  who 
has  "  built  up  the  trade."  It  is  he  who  has  car- 
ried on  the  smuggling  and  the  bribing  and  knif- 
ing and  shooting  and  all-round,  strong-arm  work 
which  has  made  the  trade  what  it  is.  To  be 
sure,  as  we  get  on  in  this  narrative  we  shall  not 
always  find  the  distinction  between  Clean  and 
Dirty  so  clear  as  we  would  like.  Through  the 
dust  and  smoke  and  red  flame  of  all  that  dirty 
business  along  "  the  Coast  "  we  shall  glimpse  for 
an  instant  or  so,  now  and  then,  a  face  that  looks 
distressingly  like  the  face  of  old  Respectability 
himself.  I  have  found  myself  in  momentary  be- 
wilderment when  walking  through  the  splendid 
masonry-lined  streets  of  Hongkong,  when  sitting 
beneath  the  frescoed  ceiling  of  that  pinnacled 
structure  that  houses  the  most  nearly  Christian 


30  Drugging  a  Nation 

of  parliaments,  trying  to  believe  that  this  opium 
drama  can  be  real.  And  I  have  wondered,  and 
puzzled,  until  a  smell  like  the  smell  of  China  has 
come  floating  to  the  nostrils  of  memory ;  until  a 
picture  of  want  and  disease  and  misery — of 
crawling,  swarming  human  misery  unlike  any- 
thing which  the  untravelled  Western  mind  can 
conceive — has  appeared  before  the  eyes  of 
memory.  I  have  thought  of  those  starving  thou- 
sands from  the  famine  districts  creeping  into 
Chinkiang  to  die,  of  those  gaunt,  seemed  faces 
along  the  highroad  that  runs  southwestward  from 
Peking  to  Sian-fu  ;  I  have  thought  of  a  land  that 
knows  no  dentistry,  no  surgery,  no  hygiene,  no 
scientific  medicine,  no  sanitation;  of  a  land 
where  the  smallpox  is  a  lesser  menace  beside 
the  leprosy,  plague,  tuberculosis,  that  rage 
simply  at  will,  and  beside  famines  so  colossal 
in  their  sweep,  that  the  overtaxed  West- 
ern mind  simply  refuses  to  comprehend  them. 
And  De  Quincey's  words  have  come  to  me  : 
"  What  was  it  that  drove  me  into  the  habitual 
use  of  opium?  Misery — blank  desolation — 

settled    and    abiding    darkness ?"      These 

words  help  to  clear  it  up.  China  was  a  wonder- 
ful field,  ready  prepared  for  the  ravages  of  opium 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  31 

— none  better.  The  mighty  currents  of  trade 
did  the  rest.  The  balance  sheet  reigned  supreme 
as  by  right.  The  balance  sheet  reigns  to-day. 

But  we  must  get  on  with  our  narrative.  I  will 
try  to  pass  it  along  in  the  form  in  which  it  has 
presented  itself  to  me.  If  Clean  and  Dirty  ap- 
pear in  closer  and  more  puzzling  alliance  than  we 
like  to  see  them,  I  cannot  help  that. 

It  was  not  easy  getting  opium,  the  commodity, 
into  the  currents  of  trade.  There  was  an  obstacle. 
The  Chinese  were  not  an  opium-consuming  race. 
They  did  not  use  opium,  they  did  not  want 
opium,  they  steadily  resisted  the  inroads  of 
opium.  But  the  rulers  of  the  company  were  far- 
seeing  men.  Tempt  misery  long  enough  and  it 
will  take  to  opium.  Two  centuries  ago  when 
small  quantities  of  the  drug  were  brought  in 
from  Java,  the  Chinese  government  objected.  In 
1729  the  importation  was  prohibited.  As  late  as 
1765,  this  importation,  carried  on  by  energetic 
traders  in  spite  of  official  resistance,  had  never 
exceeded  two  hundred  chests  a  year.  But  with 
the  advent  of  the  company  in  1773,  the  trade 
grew.  In  spite  of  a  second  Chinese  prohibition 
in  1796,  half-heartedly  enforced  by  corrupt 
mandarins,  the  total  for  1820  was  4,000  chests. 


32  Drugging  a  Nation 

The  Chinese  government  was  faced  not  only 
with  the  possibility  of  a  race  debauchery  but 
also  with  an  immediate  and  alarming  drain  of 
silver  from  the  country.  The  balance  of  the 
trade  was  against  them.  Either  as  an  economic 
or  moral  problem,  the  situation  was  grave. 

The  smoking  of  opium  began  in  China  and 
is  peculiar  to  the  Chinese.  The  Hindoos  and 
Malays  eat  it.  Complicated  and  wide-spread  as 
the  smoking  habit  is  to-day,  it  is  a  modern 
custom  as  time  runs  in  China.  There  seems  to 
be  little  doubt  in  the  minds  of  those  Sinologues 
who  have  traced  the  opium  thread  back  to  the 
tangle  of  early  missionary  reports  and  imperial 
edicts,  that  the  habit  started  either  in  Formosa  or 
on  the  mainland  across  the  Straits,  where  malaria 
is  common.  Opium  had  been  used,  generations 
before,  as  a  remedy  for  malaria ;  and  these  first 
smokers  seem  to  have  mixed  a  little  opium  with 
their  tobacco,  which  had  been  introduced  by  the 
Portuguese  in  the  early  seventeenth  century. 
From  this  beginning,  it  would  appear,  was  de- 
veloped the  rather  elaborate  outfit  which  the 
opium-smoker  of  to-day  considers  necessary  to 
his  pleasure. 

Nothing  but  solid  Anglo-Saxon  persistence 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  33 

had  enabled  the  company  to  build  up  the  trade. 
Seven  years  after  their  first  small  adventure,  or 
in  1780,  a  depot  of  two  small  receiving  hulks 
was  established  in  Lark's  Bay,  south  of  Macao. 
A  year  later  the  company  freighted  a  ship  to 
Canton,  but  finding  no  demand  were  obliged  to 
sell  the  lot  of  1,600  chests  at  a  loss  to  Sinqua,  a 
Canton  "  Hong-merchant,"  who,  not  being  able 
to  dispose  of  it  to  advantage,  reshipped  it.  The 
price  in  that  year  was  $550  (Mexican)  a  chest; 
Sinqua  had  paid  the  company  only  $200,  but 
even  at  a  bargain  he  found  no  market.  Mean- 
time, in  the  words  of  a  "  memorandum,"  prepared 
by  Joshua  Rowntree  for  the  debate  in  parliament 
last  year, "  British  merchants  spread  the  habit  up 
and  down  the  coast;  opium  store-ships  armed  as 
fortresses  were  moored  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Canton  River." 

In  1782,  the  company's  supercargoes  at  Canton 
wrote  to  Calcutta  :  "  The  importation  of  opium 
being  strongly  prohibited  by  the  Chinese  gov- 
ernment, and  a  business  altogether  new  to  us,  it 
was  necessary  for  us  to  take  our  measures  (for 
disposing  of  a  cargo)  with  the  utmost  caution." 

This  "  business  altogether  new  to  us  "  was,  of 
course,  plain  smuggling.  From  the  first  it  had 


34  Drugging  a  Nation 

been  necessary  to  arm  the  smuggling  vessels; 
and  as  these  grew  in  number  the  Chinese  sent 
out  an  increasing  number  of  armed  revenue  junks 
or  cruisers.  The  traders  usually  found  it  pos- 
sible to  buy  off  the  commanders  of  the  revenue 
junks,  but  as  this  could  not  be  done  in  every 
case  it  was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  en- 
counters now  and  then,  with  occasional  loss  of 
life.  These  affrays  soon  became  too  frequent  to 
be  ignored. 

Meantime  the  British  government  had  suc- 
ceeded the  company  in  the  rule  of  India 
and  the  control  of  the  far  Eastern  trade.  As 
this  trade  was  from  two  thirds  to  four-fifths 
opium,  a  prohibited  article,  and  as  the  whole 
question  of  trade  was  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  China  was  ignorant  of  the  greatness  and 
power  of  the  Western  nations  and  did  not  care 
to  treat  or  deal  with  them  in  any  event,  a  gov- 
ernment trade  agent  had  been  sent  out  to  Canton 
to  look  after  British  interests  and  in  general  to 
fill  the  position  of  a  combined  consul  and  un- 
accredited minister.  In  the  late  1 830*3  this 
agent,  Captain  Charles  Elliot  (successor  to  Lord 
Napier,  the  first  agent),  found  himself  in  the 
delicate  position  of  protecting  English  smugglers, 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  35 

who  were  steadily  drawing  their  country  towards 
war  because  the  Chinese  government  was  mak- 
ing strong  efforts  to  drive  them  out  of  business. 
From  what  Captain  Elliot  has  left  on  record  it  is 
plain  that  he  was  having  a  bad  time  of  it.  In 
1837,  he  wrote  to  Lord  Palmerston  of  "the 
wide-spreading  public  mischief"  arising  from 
"the  steady  continuance  of  a  vast,  prohibited 
traffic  in  an  article  of  vicious  luxury,"  and  sug- 
gested that  "  a  gradual  check  to  our  own  growth 
and  imports  would  be  salutary."  Two  years 
later  he  wrote  that  "  the  Chinese  government 
have  a  just  ground  for  harsh  measures  towards 
the  lawful  trade,  upon  th«  plea  that  there 
is  no  distinction  between  the  right  and  the 
wrong." 

He  even  said :  "  No  man  entertains  a  deeper 
detestation  of  the  disgrace  and  sin  of  this  forced 
traffic  ;  "  and,  "  I  see  little  to  choose  between  it 
and  piracy."  But  when  the  war  cloud  broke, 
and  responsibility  for  the  welfare  of  Britain's  sub- 
jects and  trade  interests  in  China  devolved  upon 
him,  he  compromised.  "  It  does  not  consort 
with  my  station,"  he  wrote, "  to  sanction  measures 
of  general  and  undistinguishing  violence  against 
His  Majesty's  officers  and  subjects." 


36  Drugging  a  Nation 

It  will  be  interesting  before  we  consider  the 
opium  war  and  its  immense  significance  in  history, 
to  glance  over  the  attitude  of  the  company  and 
later  of  its  successor,  the  government,  towards 
the  whole  miserable  business.  The  company's 
board  of  directors,  in  1817,  had  sent  this  dispatch 
from  Calcutta  in  answer  to  a  question,  "  Were  it 
possible  to  prevent  the  using  of  the  drug  al- 
together, except  strictly  for  the  purpose  of 
medicine,  we  would  gladly  do  it  in  compassion 
to  mankind." 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  believe  that  the  East 
India  Company  was  sincere  in  this  ineffective  if 
well-phrased  expression  of  "  compassion."  The 
spectacle  of  a  great  corporation  in  any  century 
giving  up  a  lucrative  traffic  on  merely  human 
and  moral  grounds  would  be  illuminating  and 
uplifting.  But  unfortunate  business  corporations 
are,  in  their  very  nature,  slaves  of  the  balance 
sheet,  organized  representatives  of  the  mighty 
laws  of  trade.  I  have  already  quoted  enough 
evidence  to  show  that  the  company  was  not  only 
awake  to  the  dangers  of  opium,  but  that  it  had 
deliberately  and  painstakingly  worked  up  the 
traffic.  Had  there  been,  then,  a  change  of  heart 
in  the  directorate?  I  fear  not.  Among  the 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  37 

East  Indian  correspondence  of  1830,  this  word 
from  the  company's  governor-general  came  to 
light :  "  We  are  taking  measures  for  extending 
the  cultivation  of  the  poppy,  with  a  view  to  a 
larger  increase  in  the  supply  of  opium."  And 
in  this  same  year,  1830,  a  House  of  Commons 
committee  reported  that  "  The  trade,  which  is 
altogether  contraband,  has  been  largely  extended 
of  late  years." 

G.  H.  M.  Batten,  a  formal  official  of  the  Indian 
Civil  Service,  who  contributed  the  chapter  on 
opium  in  Sir  John  Strachey's  work  on  "  India, 
its  Administration  and  Progress,"  has  been  re- 
garded of  late  years  as  one  of  the  ablest  defenders 
of  the  whole  opium  policy.  He  believes  that 
"  The  daily  use  of  opium  in  moderation  is  not 
only  harmless  but  of  positive  benefit,  and  fre- 
quently even  a  necessity  of  life."  This  man,  see- 
ing little  but  good  in  opium,  doubts  "  if  it  ever 
entered  into  the  conception  of  the  court  of  di- 
rectors to  suppress  in  the  interests  of  morality  the 
cultivation  of  the  poppy." 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  testimony  bearing 
against  the  policy  of  the  company  was  that  given 
by  Robert  Inglis,  of  Canton,  a  partner  in  the 
large  opium-trading  firm  of  Dent  &  Co.,  to  the 


38  Drugging  a  Nation 

Select  Committee  on  China  Trade  (House  of 
Commons,  1 840).  Here  it  is  : 

Mr.  Inglis.— "  I  told  him  (Captain  Elliot)  that 
I  was  sure  the  thing  could  not  go  on." 

Mr.  Gladstone. — "  How  long  ago  have  you 
told  him  that  you  were  sure  the  thing  could  not 
go  on  ?  " 

Mr.  Inglis. — "  For  four  or  five  years  past." 

Chairman. — "What  gave  you  that  impres- 
sion ?  " 

Mr.  Inglis. — "  An  immense  quantity  of  opium 
being  forced  upon  the  Chinese  every  year,  and 
that  in  its  turn  forcing  it  up  the  coast  in  our 
vessels." 

Chairman. — "  When  you  use  the  words  «  forc- 
ing it  upon  them,'  do  you  mean  that  they  were 
not  voluntary  purchasers  ?  " 

Mr.  Inglis. — "  No,  but  the  East  India  Company 
were  increasing  the  quantity  of  opium  almost 
every  year,  without  reference  to  the  demand  in 
China ;  that  is  to  say,  there  was  always  an  im- 
mense supply  of  opium  in  China,  and  the  com- 
pany still  kept  increasing  the  quantity  at  lower 
prices." 

Three  years  later,  just  after  the  war,  Sir  George 
Staunton,  speaking  from  experience  as  a  British 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  39 

official  in  the  East,  said  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, "  I  never  denied  the  fact  that  if  there  had 
been  no  opium  smuggling  there  would  have  been 
no  war. 

"  Even  if  the  opium  habit  had  been  permitted 
to  run  its  natural  course,  if  it  had  not  received 
an  extraordinary  impulse  from  the  measures 
taken  by  the  East  India  Company  to  promote  its 
growth,  which  almost  quadrupled  the  supply,  I 
believe  it  would  never  have  created  that  extra- 
ordinary alarm  in  the  Chinese  authorities  which 
betrayed  them  into  the  adoption  of  a  sort  of  coup 
d'  etat  for  its  suppression." 

Sir  William  Muir,  some  time  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor of  the  Northwest  Provinces  of  India,  is  on 
record  thus  :  "  By  increasing  its  supply  of '  pro- 
vision' opium,  it  (the  Bengal  government)  has 
repeatedly  caused  a  glut  in  the  Chinese  market,  a 
collapse  of  prices  in  India,  an  extensive  bank- 
ruptcy and  misery  in  Malwa." 

The  most  interesting  summing-up  of  the  whole 
question  I  have  seen  is  from  the  pen  of  Sir  Ar- 
thur Cotton,  who  wrote  after  sixty  years'  experi- 
ence in  Indian  affairs,  protesting  against  "  con- 
tinuing this  trading  upon  the  sins  and  miseries 
of  the  greatest  nation  in  the  world  in  respect  of 


40  Drugging  a  Nation 

population,  on  the  ground  of  our  needing  the 
money." 

What  was  China  doing  to  protect  herself  from 
these  aggressions  ?  The  British  merchants  and 
the  British  trade  agent  had  by  this  time  worked 
into  the  good-will  of  the  Chinese  merchants  and 
the  corrupt  mandarins,  and  had  finally  established 
their  residence  at  Canton  and  their  depot  of  store- 
ships  at  Whampoa,  a  short  journey  down  the 
river.  In  1839  there  were  about  20,000  chests 
of  opium  stored  in  these  hulks.  In  that  same 
year  the  Chinese  emperor  sent  a  powerful  and 
able  official  named  Lin  Tse-hsu  from  Peking  to 
Canton  with  orders  to  put  down  the  traffic  at  any 
cost  Commissioner  Lin  was  a  man  of  unusual 
force.  He  perfectly  understood  the  situation  in 
so  far  as  it  concerned  China.  He  had  his  orders. 
He  knew  what  they  meant.  He  proposed  to 
put  them  into  effect.  There  was  only  one  im- 
portant consideration  which  he  seems  to  have 
overlooked — it  was  that  India  "  needed  the 
money."  His  proposal  that  the  foreign  agents 
deliver  up  their  stores  of  "  the  prohibited  article  " 
did  not  meet  with  an  immediate  response.  The 
traders  had  not  the  slightest  notion  of  yielding 
up  20,000  chests  of  opium,  worth,  at  that  time, 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  41 

$300  a  chest.  Lin's  appeals  to  the  most  nearly 
Christian  of  queens,  were  no  more  successful. 
He  did  not  seem  to  understand  that  China  was  a 
long  way  off;  it  was  very  close  to  him.  Here  is 
a  translation  of  what  he  had  to  say.  To  our 
eyes  to-day,  it  seems  fairly  intelligent,  even  rea- 
sonable : 

"  Though  not  making  use  of  it  one's  self,  to 
venture  on  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  it  (opium) 
and  with  it  to  seduce  the  simple  folk  of  this  land 
is  to  seek  one's  own  livelihood  by  the  exposure 
of  others  to  death.  Such  acts  are  bitterly  ab- 
horrent to  the  nature  of  man  and  are  utterly  op- 
posed to  the  ways  of  heaven.  We  would  now 
then  concert  with  your  «  Hon.  Sovereignty ' 
means  to  bring  a  perpetual  end  to  this  opium 
traffic  so  hurtful  to  mankind,  we  in  this  land  for- 
bidding the  use  of  it  and  you  in  the  nations  un- 
der your  dominion  forbidding  its  manufacture." 

Her  "  Hon.  Sovereignty,"  if  she  ever  saw  this 
appeal  (which  may  be  doubted),  neglected  to 
reply.  Meeting  with  small  consideration  from 
the  traders,  as  from  their  sovereign,  Commis- 
sioner Lin  set  about  carrying  out  his  orders. 
There  was  an  admirable  thoroughness  in  his 
methods.  He  surrounded  the  residence  of  the 


42  Drugging  a  Nation 

traders,  Captain  Elliot's  among  them,  with  an 
army  of  howling,  drum-beating  Chinese  soldiers, 
and  again  proposed  that  they  deliver  up  those 
20,000  chests.  Now,  the  avenues  of  trade  do  not 
lead  to  martyrdom.  Traders  rarely  die  for  their 
principles — they  prefer  living  for  them.  The 
20,000  chests  were  delivered  up,  with  a  rapidity 
that  was  almost  haste ;  and  the  merchants,  under 
the  leadership  of  the  agent,  withdrew  to  the 
doubtful  shelter  of  their  own  guns,  down  the 
river.  Commissioner  Lin,  still  with  that  exasper- 
atingly  thorough  air,  mixed  the  masses  of  opium 
with  lime  and  emptied  it  into  the  sea.  England, 
her  dignity  outraged,  hurt  at  her  tenderest  point, 
sent  out  ships,  men  and  money.  She  seized  port 
after  port ;  bombarded  and  took  Canton ;  swept 
victoriously  up  the  Yangtse,  and  by  blocking  the 
Grand  Canal  at  Chinkiang  interrupted  the  pro- 
cession of  tribute  junks  sailing  up  the  Peking  and 
thus  cut  off  an  important  source  of  the  Chinese 
imperial  revenue.  This  resulted  in  the  treaty  of 
Nanking,  in  1843,  which  was  negotiated  by  the 
British  government  by  Sir  Henry  Pottinger. 

Sir  Henry,  like  Commissioner  Lin,  had  his 
orders.  His  methods,  like  Lin's,  were  admirable 
in  their  thoroughness.  He  secured  the  following 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  43 

terms  from  the  crestfallen  Chinese  government : 
I.  There  was  to  be  a  "  lasting  peace"  between 
the  two  nations.  2.  Canton,  Amoy,  Foochou, 
Ningpo,  and  Shanghai  were  to  be  open  as 
"  treaty  ports."  3.  The  Island  of  Hongkong 
was  to  be  ceded  to  Great  Britain.  4.  An  in- 
demnity of  $21,000,000  was  to  be  paid,  $6,000,000 
as  the  value  of  the  opium  destroyed,  $3,000,000 
for  the  destruction  of  the  property  of  British 
subjects,  and  $12,000,000  for  the  expenses  of  the 
war.  It  was  further  understood  that  the  British 
were  to  hold  the  places  they  had  seized  until 
these  and  a  number  of  other  humiliating  condi- 
tions were  to  be  fulfilled.  Thus  was  the  energy 
and  persistence  of  the  opium  smugglers  re- 
warded. Thus  began  that  partition  of  China 
which  has  been  going  on  ever  since.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  be  a  Christian  when  far  from  home. 

It  is  difficult  to  get  an  admission  even  to-day, 
from  a  thorough-going  British  trader,  that  opium 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  war  of  1840-43. 
He  is  likely  to  insist  either  that  the  war  was 
caused  by  the  refusal  of  Chinese  officials  to  ad- 
mit English  representatives  on  terms  of  equality, 
or  that  it  was  caused  by  "  the  stopping  of  trade." 
There  was,  indeed,  a  touch  of  the  naiveiv 


44  Drugging  a  Nation 

Oriental  in  the  attitude  of  China.  To  the 
Chinese  official  mind,  China  was  the  greatest  of 
nations,  occupying  something  like  five-sixths  of 
the  huge  flat  disc  called  the  world.  England, 
Holland,  Spain,  France,  Portugal,  and  Japan 
were  small  islands  crowded  in  between  the  edge 
of  China  and  the  rim  of  the  disc.  That  these 
small  nations  should  wish  to  trade  with  "  the 
Middle  Kingdom  "  and  to  bring  tribute  to  the 
"  Son  of  Heaven,"  was  not  unnatural.  But  that 
the  "  Son  of  Heaven  "  must  admit  them  whether 
he  liked  or  not,  and  as  equals,  was  preposterous. 
Stripping  these  notions  of  their  quaint  Oriental- 
ism, they  boiled  down  to  the  simple  principle 
that  China  recognized  no  law  of  earth  or  heaven 
which  could  force  her  to  admit  foreign  traders, 
foreign  ministers,  or  foreign  religions  if  she  pre- 
ferred to  live  by  herself  and  mind  her  own  busi- 
ness. That  China  has  minded  her  own  business 
and  does  mind  her  own  business  is,  I  think,  in- 
disputable. 

The  notions  which  animated  the  English  were 
equally  simple.  Stripped  of  their  quaint  Occi- 
dental shell  of  religion  and  respectability  and 
theories  of  personal  liberty,  they  seem  to  boil 
down  to  about  this — that  China  was  a  great  and 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  45 

undeveloped  market  and  therefore  the  trading 
nations  had  a  right  to  trade  with  her  willy-nilly, 
and  any  effective  attempt  to  stop  this  trade  was, 
in  some  vague  way,  an  infringement  of  their 
rights  as  trading  nations.  In  maintaining  this 
theory,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  forget  that  opium, 
though  a  "commodity,"  was  an  admittedly 
vicious  and  contraband  commodity,  to  be  used 
"  for  purposes  of  foreign  commerce  only." 

In  providing  that  there  should  be  a  "  lasting 
peace  "  between  the  two  nations,  it  was  probably 
the  idea  to  insure  British  traders  against  attack, 
or  rather  to  provide  a  technical  excuse  for  re- 
prisals in  case  of  such  attacks.  But  for  some 
reason  nothing  whatever  was  said  about  opium 
in  the  treaty.  Now  opium  was  more  than 
ever  the  chief  of  the  trade.  England  had 
not  the  slightest  notion  of  giving  it  up;  on 
the  contrary,  opium  shipments  were  increased 
and  the  smuggling  was  developed  to  an 
extraordinary  extent.  How  a  "  lasting  peace  " 
was  to  be  maintained  while  opium,  the  cause  of 
all  the  trouble,  was  still  unrecognized  by  either 
government  as  a  legitimate  commodity,  while, 
indeed,  the  Chinese,  however  chastened  and  hu- 
miliated, were  still  making  desperate  if  indirect 


46  Drugging  a  Nation 

efforts  to  keep  it  out  of  the  country  and  the  Eng- 
lish were  making  strong  efforts  to  get  it  into  the 
country,  is  a  problem  I  leave  to  subtler  minds. 
The  upshot  was,  of  course,  that  the  "  lasting 
peace "  did  not  last.  Within  fifteen  years  there 
was  another  war.  By  the  second  treaty  (that  of 
Tientsin,  1858)  Britain  secured  4,000,000  taels 
of  indemnity  money  (about  $3,000,000),  the 
opening  of  five  more  treaty  ports,  toleration  for 
the  Christian  religion,  and  the  admission  of 
opium  under  a  specified  tariff.  The  Tientsin 
Treaty  legalized  Christianity  and  opium.  China 
had  defied  the  laws  of  trade,  and  had  learned  her 
lesson.  It  had  been  a  costly  lesson — £24,000,000 
in  money,  thousands  of  lives,  the  fixing  on  the 
race  of  a  soul-blighting  vice,  the  loss  of  some  of 
her  best  seaports,  more,  the  loss  of  her  inde- 
pendence as  a  nation — but  she  had  learned  it. 
And  therefore,  except  for  a  crazy  outburst  now 
and  then  as  the  foreign  grip  grew  tighter,  she 
was  to  submit. 

But  China's  trouble  was  not  over.  If  she  was 
to  be  debauched  whether  or  no,  must  she  also  be 
ruined  financially?  There  were  the  indemnity 
payments  to  meet,  with  interest ;  and  no  way  of 
meeting  them  other  than  to  squeeze  tighter  a 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  47 

poverty-stricken  nation  which  was  growing  more 
poverty-stricken  as  her  silver  drained  steadily  off 
to  the  foreigners.  There  was  a  solution  to  the 
problem — a  simple  one.  It  was  to  permit  the 
growth  of  opium  in  China  itself,  supplant  the 
Indian  trade,  keep  the  silver  at  home.  But  China 
was  slow  to  adopt  this  solution.  It  might  solve 
the  fiscal  problem;  but  incidentally  it  might 
wreck  China.  She  sounded  England  on  the 
subject, — once,  twice.  There  seemed  to  have 
been  some  idea  that  England,  convinced  that 
China  had  her  own  possibility  of  crowding  out 
the  Indian  drug,  might,  after  all,  give  up  the 
trade,  stop  the  production  in  India,  and  make  the 
great  step  unnecessary.  But  England  could  not 
see  it  in  that  light.  China  wavered,  then  took 
the  great  step.  The  restrictions  on  opium-grow- 
ing were  removed.  This  was  probably  a  mis- 
take, though  opinions  still  differ  about  that.  To 
the  men  who  stood  responsible  for  a  solution  of 
Chinese  fiscal  problem  it  doubtless  seemed  neces- 
sary. At  all  events,  the  last  barrier  between 
China  and  ruin  was  removed  by  the  Chinese  them- 
selves. And  within  less  than  half  a  century  after 
the  native  growth  of  the  poppy  began,  the  white 
and  pink  and  mauve  blossoms  have  spread  across 


48  Drugging  a  Nation 

the  great  empire,  north  and  south,  east  and  west, 
until  to-day,  in  blossom-time  almost  every  part 
of  every  province  has  its  white  and  mauve 
patches.  You  may  see  them  in  Manchuria,  on 
the  edge  of  the  great  desert  of  Gobi,  within  a 
dozen  miles  of  Peking ;  you  may  see  them  from 
the  headwaters  of  the  mighty  Yangtse  to  its 
mouth,  up  and  down  the  coast  for  two  thousand 
miles,  on  the  distant  borders  of  Thibet. 

No  one  knows  how  much  opium  was  grown 
in  China  last  year.  There  are  estimates — official, 
missionary,  consular ;  and  they  disagree  by  thou- 
sands and  tens  of  thousands  of  tons.  But  it  is 
known  that  where  the  delicate  poppy  is  reared, 
it  demands  and  receives  the  best  land.  It  thrives 
in  the  rich  river-bottoms.  It  has  crowded  out 
grain  and  vegetables  wherever  it  has  spread,  and 
has  thus  become  a  contributing  factor  to  famines. 
Its  product,  opium,  has  run  over  China  like  a 
black  wave,  leaving  behind  it  a  misery,  a  dark- 
ness, a  desolation  that  has  struck  even  the  Chi- 
nese, even  its  victims,  with  horror.  China  has 
passed  from  misery  to  disaster.  And  as  if  the 
laws  of  trade  had  chosen  to  turn  capriciously 
from  their  inexorable  business  and  wreak  a  grim 
joke  on  a  prostrate  race,  the  solution,  the  great 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  49 

step,  has  failed  in  its  purpose.  The  trade  in 
Indian  opium  has  been  hurt,  to  be  sure,  but  not 
supplanted.  It  will  never  be  supplanted  until  the 
British  government  deliberately  puts  it  down. 
For  the  Chinese  cannot  raise  opium  which  com- 
petes in  quality  with  the  Indian  drug.  Indian 
opium  is  in  steady  demand  for  the  purpose  of 
mixing  with  Chinese  opium.  No  duties  can  keep 
it  out;  duties  simply  increase  the  cost  to  the 
Chinese  consumer,  simply  ruin  him  a  bit  more 
rapidly.  So  authoritative  an  expert  as  Sir  Rob- 
ert Hart,  director  of  the  Chinese  imperial  cus- 
toms, had  hoped  that  the  great  step  would  prove 
effective.  In  "  These  from  the  Land  of  Sinim  " 
he  has  expressed  his  hope : 

"  Your  legalized  opium  has  been  a  cure  in 
every  province  it  penetrates,  and  your  refusal  to 
limit  or  decrease  the  import  has  forced  us  to 
attempt  a  dangerous  remedy — legalized  native 
opium — not  because  we  approve  of  it,  but  to 
compete  with  and  drive  out  the  foreign  drug; 
and  it  is  expelling  it,  and  when  we  have  only 
the  native  production  to  deal  with,  and  thus  have 
the  business  in  our  own  hands,  we  hope  to  stop 
the  habit  in  our  own  way." 

The  great  step  has  failed.     Indian  opium  has 


50  Drugging  a  Nation 

not  been  expelled.  For  the  Chinese  to  put 
down  the  native  drug  without  stopping  the 
import  is  impossible  as  well  as  useless.  The 
Chinese  seem  determined,  in  one  way  or  an- 
other, to  put  down  both.  Once,  again,  after  a 
weary  century  of  struggle,  they  have  approached 
the  British  government.  Once  again  the  British 
government  has  been  driven  from  the  Scylla  of 
healthy  Anglo-Saxon  moral  indignation  to  the 
Charybdis  behind  that  illuminating  phrase — 
"  India  needs  the  money."  Twenty  million 
dollars  is  a  good  deal  of  money.  The  balance 
sheet  reigns ;  and  the  balance  sheet  is  an  exact- 
ing ruler,  even  if  it  has  triumphed  over  common 
decency,  over  common  morality,  over  common 
humanity. 


Will  you  ride  with  me  (by  rickshaw)  along  the 
International  Bund  at  Shanghai — beyond  the 
German  Club  and  the  Hongkong  Bank — over 
the  little  bridge  that  leads  to  Frenchtown — past 
a  half  mile  of  warehouses  and  chanting  coolies 
and  big  yellow  Hankow  steamers — until  we  turn 
out  on  the  French  Bund?  It  is  a  raw,  cloudy, 
March  morning;  the  vendors  of  queer  edibles 


AN   OPIUM   RECEIVING  SHIP   OR  "GODOWN" 

AT   SHANGHAI 

The  Imported  Indian  Opium  is  Stored  in  These  Ships  Until  it 
Passes  the  Chinese  Imperial  Customs 


THE   OPIUM   HULKS   OF    SHANGHAI 
"  They  Symbolize  China's  Degredation  " 


The  Golden  Opium  Days  51 

who   line  the  curbing  find  it  warmer  to  keep 
their  hands  inside  their  quilted  sleeves. 

It  is  a  lively  day  on  the  river.  Admiral 
Brownson's  fleet  of  white  cruisers  lie  at  anchor 
in  midstream.  A  lead-gray  British  cruiser  swings 
below  them,  an  anachronistic  Chinese  gunboat 
lower  still.  Big  black  merchantmen  fill  in  the 
view — a  P.  and  O.  ship  is  taking  on  coal — a 
two-hundred-ton  junk  with  red  sails  moves  by. 
Nearer  at  hand,  from  the  stone  quay  outward, 
the  river  front  is  crowded  close  with  sampans 
and  junks,  rows  on  rows  of  them,  each  with  its 
round  little  house  of  yellow  matting,  each  with 
its  swarm  of  brown  children,  each  with  its  own 
pungent  contribution  to  the  all-pervasive  odour. 
Gaze  out  through  the  forests  of  masts,  if  you 
please,  and  you  will  see  two  old  hulks,  roofed  with 
what  looks  suspiciously  like  shingles,  at  anchor 
beyond.  They  might  be  ancient  men-of-war, 
pensioned  off  to  honourable  decay.  You  can 
see  the  square  outline  of  what  once  were  port- 
holes, boarded  up  now.  The  carved,  wooden 
figure-heads  at  the  prow  of  each  are  chipped  and 
blackened  with  age  and  weather.  What  are 
they  and  why  do  they  lie  here  in  mid-channel, 
where  commerce  surges  about  them  ? 


52  Drugging  a  Nation 

These  are  the  opium  hulks  of  Shanghai.  In 
them  is  stored  the  opium  which  the  government 
of  British  India  has  grown  and  manufactured  for 
consumption  in  China.  They  symbolize  China's 
degradation. 


Ill 

A  GLIMPSE  INTO  AN  OPIUM  PROVINCE 

THE  opium  provinces  of  China — that  is, 
the  provinces  which  have  been  most 
nearly  completely  ruined  by  opium — 
lie  well  back  in  the  interior.  They  cover, 
roughly,  an  area  1,200  miles  long  by  half  as 
wide,  say  about  one-third  the  area  of  the  United 
States;  and  they  support,  after  a  fashion,  a 
population  of  about  160,000,000.  There  had 
been  plenty  of  evidence  obtainable  at  Shanghai, 
Hankow,  Peking,  and  Tientsin,  of  the  terrible 
ravages  of  opium  in  these  regions,  but  it  seemed 
advisable  to  make  a  journey  into  one  of  these 
unfortunate  provinces  and  view  the  problem  at 
short  range.  The  nearest  and  most  accessible 
was  Shansi  Province.  It  lies  to  the  west  and 
southwest  of  Peking,  behind  the  blue  mountains 
which  one  sees  from  the  Hankow-Peking  Rail- 
road. There  seemed  to  be  no  doubt  that  the 
opium  curse  could  there  be  seen  at  its  worst. 
Everybody  said  so — legation  officials,  attaches, 
53 


54  Drugging  a  Nation 

merchants,  missionaries.  Dr.  Piell,  of  the  Lon- 
don Mission  hospital  at  Peking,  estimated  that 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren in  Shansi  smoke  opium.  He  called  in  one 
of  his  native  medical  assistants,  who  happened 
to  be  a  Shansi  man,  and  the  assistant  observed, 
with  a  smile,  that  ninety  per  cent,  seemed  pretty 
low  as  an  estimate.  Another  point  in  Shansi's 
favour  was  that  the  railroads  were  pushing  rapidly 
through  to  T'ai  Tuan-fu,  the  capital  (and  one  of 
the  oldest  cities  in  oldest  China).  So  I  picked 
up  an  interpreter  at  the  Grand  Hotel  des  Wagon- 
lits,  and  went  out  there. 

The  new  Shansi  railroad  was  not  completed 
through  to  Tai-Yuan-fu,  the  provincial  capital, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  journey  for  several  days 
by  cart  and  mule-litter.  While  this  sort  of 
travelling  is  not  the  most  comfortable  in  the 
world,  it  has  the  advantage  of  bringing  one  close 
to  the  life  that  swarms  along  the  highroad,  and 
of  making  it  easier  to  gather  facts  and  impres- 
sions. 

Every  hour  or  so,  as  the  cart  crawls  slowly 
along,  you  come  upon  a  dusty  gray  village  nest- 
ling in  a  hollow  or  clinging  to  the  hillside.  And 
nearly  every  village  is  a  little  more  than  a  heap 


THE   VILLAGES   WERE    LITTLE    MORE  THAN 

HEAPS    OF    RUINS 

These  Holes  in  the  Ground  are  Occupied  by  Formerly 
Well-to-do  Opium  Smokers 


AT  LAST  HE  CRAWLS  OUT  ON  THE  HIGHWAY, 

WHINING,  CHATTERING  AND  PRAYING  THAT 

A  FEW  COPPER  CASH  BE  THROWN  TO  HIM 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province     55 

of  ruins.  I  was  prepared  to  find  ruins,  but  not  to 
such  an  extent.  When  I  first  drew  John,  the 
interpreter's,  attention  to  them,  he  said,  "  Too 
much  years."  As  an  explanation  this  was  not 
satisfactory,  because  many  of  the  ruined  buildings 
were  comparatively  new — certainly,  too  new  to 
fall  to  pieces.  At  the  second  village  John  made 
another  guess  at  the  cause  of  such  complete 
disaster.  "  Poor — too  poor,"  he  said,  and  then 
traced  it  back  to  the  last  famine,  about  which, 
he  found,  the  peasants  were  still  talking. 
"  Whole  lot  o'  mens  die,"  he  explained.  It  was 
later  on  that  I  got  at  the  main  contributing  cause 
of  the  wreck  and  ruin  which  one  finds  almost 
everywhere  in  Shansi  Province,  after  I  had 
picked  up,  through  John  and  his  cook,  the  road- 
side gossip  of  many  days  during  two  or  three 
hundred  miles  of  travel,  after  I  had  talked  with 
missionaries  of  life-long  experience,  with  physi- 
cians who  are  devoting  their  lives  to  work  among 
these  misery- ridden  people,  with  merchants, 
travellers,  and  Chinese  and  Manchu  officials. 

Before  we  take  up  in  detail  the  ravages  of 
opium  throughout  this  and  other  provinces,  I 
wish  to  say  a  word  about  one  source  of  infor- 
mation, which  every  observer  of  conditions  in 


56  Drugging  a  Nation 

China  finds,  sooner  or  later,  that  he  is  forced  to 
employ.  Along  the  China  coast  one  hears  a 
good  deal  of  talk  about  the  "  missionary  ques- 
tion." Many  of  the  foreign  merchants  abuse  the 
missionaries.  I  will  confess  that  the  "  anti-mis- 
sionary "  side  had  been  so  often  and  so  forcibly 
presented  to  me  that  before  I  got  away  from 
the  coast  I  unconsciously  shared  the  prejudice. 
But  now,  brushing  aside  the  exceptional  men  on 
both  sides  of  the  controversy,  and  ignoring  for 
the  moment  the  deeper  significance  of  it,  let  me 
give  the  situation  as  it  presented  itself  to  me  be- 
fore I  left  China. 

There  are  many  foreign  merchants  who  study 
the  language,  travel  extensively,  and  speak  with 
authority  on  things  Chinese.  But  the  typical 
merchant  of  the  treaty  port,  that  is,  the  merchant 
whom  one  hears  so  loudly  abusing  the  mission- 
aries, does  not  speak  the  language.  He  trans- 
acts most  of  his  business  through  his  Chinese 
"  Compradore"  arid  apparently  divides  the  chief 
of  his  time  between  the  club,  the  race-track,  and 
various  other  places  of  amusement.  This  sort 
of  merchant  is  the  kind  most  in  evidence,  and  it 
is  he  who  contributes  most  largely  to  the  anti- 
missionary  feeling  "  back  home."  The  mission- 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    5^ 

aries,  on  the  other  hand,  almost  to  a  man,  speak, 
read,  and  write  one  or  more  native  dialects. 
They  live  among  the  Chinese,  and,  in  order  to 
carry  on  their  work  at  all,  they  must  be  continu- 
ally studying  the  traditions,  customs,  and  prej- 
udices of  their  neighbours.  In  almost  every  in- 
stance the  missionaries  who  supplied  me  with 
information  were  more  conservative  than  the 
British  and  American  diplomatic,  consular,  mili- 
tary, and  medical  observers  who  have  travelled 
in  the  opium  provinces.  I  have  since  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  missionaries  are  over- 
conservative  on  the  opium  question,  probably 
because,  being  constantly  under  fire  as  "  fanatics  " 
and  "enthusiasts,"  they  unconsciously  lean  too 
far  towards  the  side  of  under-statement.  The 
published  estimates  of  Dr.  Du  Bose,  of  Soochow, 
president  of  the  Anti-opium  League,  are  much 
more  conservative  than  those  of  Mr.  Alex  Hosie, 
the  British  commercial  attache  and  former  consul- 
general.  Dr.  Parker,  of  Shanghai,  the  gentle- 
men of  the  London  Mission,  the  American 
Board,  and  the  American  Presbyterian  Missions 
at  Peking,  scores  of  other  missionaries  whom  I 
saw  in  their  homes  in  the  interior  or  at  the  mis- 
sionary conference  at  Shanghai,  and  Messrs. 


'58  Drugging  a  Nation 

Gaily,  Robertson,  and  Lewis,  of  the  International 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  all  impressed 
me  as  men  whose  opinions  were  based  on  infor- 
mation and  not  on  prejudice.  Dr.  Morrison, 
the  able  Peking  correspondent  of  the  London 
Times,  said  to  me  when  I  arrived  at  the  capital, 
"  You  ought  to  talk  with  the  missionaries."  I 
did  talk  with  them,  and  among  many  different 
sources  of  information  I  found  them  worthy  of 
the  most  serious  consideration. 

The  phrase,  "opium  province,"  means,  in 
China,  that  an  entire  province  (which,  in  extent 
and  in  political  outline,  may  be  roughly  com- 
pared to  one  of  the  United  States)  has  been 
ravaged  and  desolated  by  opium.  It  means 
that  all  classes,  all  ages,  both  sexes,  are  sodden 
with  the  drug ;  that  all  the  richer  soil,  which  in 
such  densely-populated  regions,  is  absolutely 
needed  for  the  production  of  food,  is  given  over 
to  the  poppy ;  that  the  manufacture  of  opium, 
of  pipes,  of  lamps,  and  of  the  various  other  ac- 
cessories, has  become  a  dominating  industry; 
that  families  are  wrecked,  that  merchants  lose 
their  acumen,  and  labourers  their  energy ;  that 
after  a  period  of  wide-spread  debauchery  and  ener- 
vation, economic,  as  well  as  moral  and  physical 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    59 

disaster,  settles  down  over  the  entire  region.  The 
population  of  these  opium  provinces  ranges  from 
fifteen  or  twenty  million  to  eighty  million. 

"  In  Shansi,'1  I  have  quoted  an  official  as 
saying,  "  everybody  smokes  opium."  Another 
cynical  observer  has  said  that  "  eleven  out  of  ten 
Shansi  men  are  opium-smokers."  In  one  village 
an  English  traveller  asked  some  natives  how 
many  of  the  inhabitants  smoked  opium,  and  one 
replied,  indicating  a  twelve-year-old  child, "  That 
boy  doesn't."  Still  another  observer,  an  English 
scientist,  who  was  born  in  Shansi,  who  speaks 
the  dialect  as  well  as  he  speaks  English,  and  who 
travels  widely  through  the  remoter  regions  in 
search  of  rare  birds  and  animals,  puts  the  pro- 
portion of  smokers  as  low  as  seventy-five  per 
cent,  of  the  total  population.  I  had  some  talks 
with  this  man  at  T'ai  Yuan-fu,  and  later  at 
Tientsin,  and  I  found  his  information  so  precise 
and  so  interesting  that  I  asked  him  one  day  to 
dictate  to  a  stenographer  some  random  observa- 
tions on  the  opium  problem  in  Shansi.  These 
few  paragraphs  make  up  a  very  small  part  of 
what  I  have  heard  him  and  others  say,  but  they 
are  so  grimly  picturesque,  and  they  give  so  ac- 
curately the  sense  of  the  mass  of  notes  and  inter- 


60  Drugging  a  Nation 

views  which  fill  my  journal  of  the  Shansi  trip, 
that  it  has  seemed  to  me  I  could  do  no  better 
than  to  print  them  just  as  he  talked  them  off  on 
that  particular  day  at  Tientsin. 

"  The  opium-growers  always  take  the  best 
piece  of  land,"  he  said,  "  in  their  land — the  best 
fertilized,  and  with  the  most  water  upon  it.  They 
find  that  it  pays  them  a  great  deal  better  than 
growing  wheat  or  anything  else.  Around  Chao 
Cheng,  especially,  they  grow  opium  to  a  large 
extent  just  beside  the  rivers,  where  they  can  get 
plenty  of  water.  The  seeds  are  sown  about 
the  beginning  of  May,  and  they  have  to  be  trans- 
planted. It  takes  until  about  the  middle  of  July 
before  the  opium  ripens.  Just  before  it  is  ripe 
men  are  employed  to  cut  the  seed  pods,  when  a 
white  sap  exudes,  and  this  dries  upon  the  pod 
and  turns  brown,  and  in  about  a  week  after  it 
has  been  cut  they  come  around  and  scrape  it 
off.  The  wages  are  from  twenty  to  thirty  cents 
(Mexican)  per  day.  Men  and  women  are  em- 
ployed in  the  work.  The  heads  of  the  poppy 
are  all  cut  off,  when  they  are  dried  and  stored 
away  for  the  seed  of  the  next  year. 

"  It  is  a  very  fragile  crop,  and  until  it  gets  to 
be  nine  inches  high  it  is  very  easily  broken.  The 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    61 

full-grown  poppy  plant  is  from  three  to  four  feet 
high.  The  Chao  Cheng  opium  is  considered  the 
best. 

"  In  the  Chao  Cheng  district  the  people  have 
been  more  or  less  ruined  by  opium.  I  have 
heard  of  a  family,  a  man  and  his  wife,  who  had 
only  one  suit  of  clothes  between  them. 

"  In  Taiku  there  is  a  large  family  by  the  name 
of  Meng,  perhaps  the  wealthiest  family  in  the 
province  of  Shansi.  For  the  past  few  years  they 
have  been  steadily  going  down,  simply  from  the 
fact  that  the  heads  of  the  family  have  become 
opium-smokers.  In  Taiku  there  is  a  large  fair 
held  each  year,  and  all  the  old  bronzes,  porce- 
lains, furniture,  etc.,  that  this  family  possesses 
are  sold.  Last  year  enough  of  their  possessions 
were  on  sale  to  stock  ten  or  twelve  small  shops 
at  the  fair. 

"  Another  man,  a  rich  man  in  Jen  Tsuen,  pos- 
sessed a  fine  summer  residence  previous  to  1900. 
This  residence  contained  several  large  houses  and 
some  fine  trees  and  shrubs,  but  during  the  last 
seven  years  he  has  taken  to  opium  and  has  been 
steadily  going  down.  He  has  been  selling  out 
this  residence,  pulling  down  the  houses  and  cut- 
ting down  the  trees,  and  selling  the  wood  and 


62  Drugging  a  Nation 

old  bricks.  He  is  now  a  beggar  in  the  streets  of 
Jen  Tsuen. 

"  All  through  the  hills  west  of  Tai  Yuan-fu  the 
peasants  are  addicted  to  the  use  of  opium.  About 
seventy  per  cent,  of  the  population  take  opium 
in  one  form  or  another.  I  was  speaking  to  a 
number  of  them  who  had  come  into  an  inn  at 
which  I  was  stopping.  I  asked  them  if  they 
wanted  to  give  up  the  use  of  opium.  They  said 
yes,  but  that  they  had  not  the  means  to  do  so. 
Everybody  would  like  to  give  it  up.  The  women 
smoke,  as  well  as  the  men. 

"  The  smoker  does  not  trouble  himself  to  plant 
seeds,  nor  to  go  out. 

"  The  houses  in  Shansi  are  very  good  ;  in  fact, 
they  are  better  than  in  other  provinces,  but  they 
are  rapidly  going  to  ruin  owing  to  the  excessive 
smoking  of  opium,  and  wherever  one  goes  the 
ruins  are  seen  on  every  side.  On  the  roads  the 
people  can  get  a  little  money  by  selling  things, 
but  off  the  main  roads  the  distress  is  worse  than 
anywhere  else. 

"  Up  in  the  hills  I  stopped  at  a  village  and  in- 
quired if  they  had  any  food  for  sale,  and  they 
told  me  that  they  had  nothing  but  frozen  pota- 
toes. So  I  asked  to  be  shown  those,  and  I  went 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    63 

into  one  of  the  hovels  and  found  little  potatoes, 
perhaps  one-half  an  inch  across,  frozen,  and  all 
strewn  over  the  kang  (the  brick  bed),  where  they 
were  drying.  As  soon  as  they  were  dry,  they 
were  to  be  ground  down  into  a  meal  of  which 
dumplings  were  made,  and  these  were  steamed. 
That  was  their  only  diet,  and  had  been  for  the 
past  month.  They  had  no  money  at  all.  What 
money  they  had  possessed  had  been  spent  on 
opium,  and  they  could  not  expect  anything  to 
make  up  the  crop  of  potatoes  the  following 
autumn.  I  noticed  in  a  basin  a  few  dried  sticks, 
and  I  asked  what  they  were  for,  and  the  man 
told  me  they  were  the  sticks  taken  from  the  sieve 
through  which  the  opium  was  filtered  for  purifi- 
cation. These  sticks  are  soaked  in  hot  water, 
and  the  water,  which  contains  a  little  opium,  is 
drunk.  They  were  using  this  in  place  of  opium. 
I  gave  this  man  twenty  cents,  and  the  next  day 
when  I  returned  he  was  enjoying  a  pipe  of  opium. 
"  While  passing  through  an  iron-smelting  vil- 
lage I  noticed  that  the  blacksmiths  who  beat  up 
the  pig  iron  were  regular  living  skeletons.  They 
work  from  about  five  in  the  morning  until  about 
five  in  the  evening,  stopping  twice  during  that 
time  for  meals.  When  they  leave  off  in  the 


64  Drugging  a  Nation 

evening,  after  a  hasty  meal  they  start  with  their 
pipes  and  go  on  until  they  are  asleep.  I  do  not 
know  how  these  men  can  work.  I  presume  that 
it  was  the  hard  work  that  made  them  take  to 
opium-smoking. 

"  On  asking  people  why  they  had  taken  to  the 
drug,  they  invariably  replied  that  it  was  for  the 
cure  of  a  pain  of  some  sort — for  relieving  the 
suffering.  The  women  often  take  to  it  after 
childbirth,  and  this  is  generally  what  starts  them 
to  smoking. 

"  The  wealthier  men  who  smoke  opium  nearly 
all  day  cannot  enter  another  room  until  this 
room  has  first  been  filled  with  the  fumes  of 
opium.  Some  one  has  to  go  into  the  room  first 
and  smoke  a  few  pipes,  so  that  the  air  of  the 
room  may  be  in  proper  condition. 

"  There  was  an  official  in  Shau-ying  who  used 
to  keep  six  slave  girls  going  all  day  filling  his 
pipes.  The  slave  girls  and  brides  very  often  try 
to  commit  suicide  by  eating  opium,  owing  to 
the  harsh  treatment  they  receive." 

Everywhere  along  the  highroad  and  in  the 
cities  and  villages  of  Shansi  you  see  the  opium 
face.  The  opium-smoker,  like  the  opium-eater, 
rapidly  loses  flesh  when  the  habit  has  fixed  itself 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    65 

on  him.  The  colour  leaves  his  skin,  and  it  be- 
comes dry,  like  parchment.  His  eye  loses  what- 
ever light  and  sparkle  it  may  have  had,  and  be- 
comes dull  and  listless.  The  opium  face  has 
been  best  described  as  a  "peculiarly  withered 
and  blasted  countenance."  With  this  face  is 
usually  associated  a  thin  body  and  a  languid  gait. 
Opium  gets  such  a  powerful  grip  on  a  confirmed 
smoker  that  it  is  usually  unsafe  for  him  to  give  up 
the  habit  without  medical  aid.  His  appetite  is 
taken  away,  his  digestion  is  impaired,  there  is  con- 
gestion of  the  various  internal  organs,  and  conges- 
tion of  the  lungs.  Constipation  and  diarrhoea  re- 
sult, with  pain  all  over  the  body.  By  the  time  he 
has  reached  this  stage,  the  smoker  has  become 
both  physically  and  mentally  weak  and  inactive. 
With  his  intellect  deadened,  his  physical  and 
moral  sense  impaired,  he  sinks  into  laziness,  im- 
morality, and  debauchery.  He  has  lost  his 
power  of  resistance  to  disease,  and  becomes  pre- 
disposed to  colds,  bronchitis,  diarrhoea,  dysentery, 
and  dyspepsia.  Brigade  Surgeon  J.  H.  Condon, 
M.  D.,  M.  R.  C.  S.,  speaking  of  opium-eaters  be- 
fore the  Royal  Commission  on  Opium,  said : 
"  They  become  emaciated  and  debilitated,  miser- 
able-looking wretches,  and  finally  die,  most 


66  Drugging  a  Nation 

commonly  of  diarrhoea  induced   by   the  use  of 
opium." 

When  a  man  has  got  himself  into  this  con- 
dition, he  must  have  opium,  and  must  have  it  all 
the  time.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that 
opium-smoking  not  only  is  perhaps  the  most  ex- 
pensive of  the  vices,  but  that,  unlike  opium-eat- 
ing, it  consumes  an  immense  amount  of  time. 
Few  smokers  can  keep  slaves  to  fill  their  pipes 
for  them,  like  that  wealthy  official  at  Shau-ying. 
It  takes  a  seasoned  smoker  from  fifteen  minutes 
to  half  an  hour  to  prepare  a  pipe  to  his  satisfac- 
tion, smoke  it,  and  rouse  himself  to  begin  the 
operation  again.  If  he  smokes  ten  or  twenty 
pipes  a  day,  which  is  common,  and  then  sleeps 
off  the  effects,  it  is  not  hard  to  figure  out  the 
number  of  hours  left  for  business  each  day. 
When  he  has  slept,  and  the  day  is  well  started, 
his  body  at  once  begins  to  clamour  for  more 
opium.  He  must  begin  smoking  again,  or  he 
will  suffer  an  agony  of  physical  and  mental  tor- 
ture. His  ten  to  twenty  pipes  a  day  will  cost 
him  from  fifty  cents  or  a  dollar  (if  he  is  a  poor 
man  and  smokes  the  scrapings  from  the  rich 
man's  pipe),  to  ten  or  twenty  dollars  (or  more,  if 
he  smokes  a  high  grade  of  opium).  I  learned  of 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    67 

many  wealthy  merchants  and  officials  who  smoke 
from  forty  to  sixty  pipes  a  day. 

It  is  just  at  this  period,  when  the  smoker  is  so 
enslaved  by  the  drug  that  he  has  lost  his  earning 
power,  that  his  opium  expenditure  increases  most 
rapidly.  He  is  buying  opium  now,  not  so  much 
to  gratify  his  selfish  vice,  as  to  keep  himself  alive. 
He  becomes  frantic  for  opium.  He  will  sell  any- 
thing he  has  to  buy  the  stuff.  His  moral  sense 
is  destroyed.  A  diseased,  decrepit,  insane  being, 
he  forgets  even  his  family.  He  sells  his  bric-a- 
brac,  his  pictures,  his  furniture.  He  sells  his 
daughters,  even  his  wife,  if  she  has  attractions,  as 
slaves  to  rich  men.  He  tears  his  house  to  pieces, 
sells  the  tiles  of  his  roof,  the  bricks  of  his  walls, 
the  woodwork  about  his  doors  and  windows.  He 
cuts  down  the  trees  in  his  yard  and  sells  the 
wood.  And  at  last  he  crawls  out  on  the  high- 
way, digs  himself  a  cave  in  the  loess  (if  he  has 
strength  enough),  and  prostrates  himself  before 
the  camel  and  donkey  drivers,  whining,  chatter- 
ing, praying  that  a  few  copper  cash  be  thrown  to 
him. 

Since  there  are  no  statistics  in  China,  I  can  give 
the  reader  only  the  observations  and  impressions 
of  a  traveller.  But  Shansi  Province  is  full  of 


68  Drugging  a  Nation 

ruins.  So  are  Szechuan  and  Yunnan  and  Kuei- 
chow,  and  half  a  dozen  others.  It  is  with  the 
province  as  a  whole  much  as  it  is  with  the  indi- 
viduals of  that  province.  The  raising  of  opium 
to  supply  this  enormous  demand  crowds  off  the 
land  the  grains  and  vegetables  that  are  absolutely 
needed  for  human  food.  The  manufacture  of 
opium  and  its  accessories  absorbs  the  energy  and 
capital  that  should  go  into  legitimate  industry. 
The  government  of  the  province  and  the  govern- 
ment of  the  empire  have  become  so  dependent 
on  the  immense  revenue  from  the  taxation  of 
this  "  vicious  article  of  luxury  "  that  they  dare 
not  give  it  up.  In  the  body  politic  an  unhealthy 
condition  not  only  exists,  but  also  controls. 
Drifting  into  it  half-consciously,  the  province  has 
been  sapped  by  a  vicious  economic  habit.  That 
is  what  is  the  matter  with  Shansi.  That  is  what 
is  the  matter  with  China.  All  the  way  along  my 
route  in  Shansi  I  photographed  the  ruins  that 
typify  the  disaster  which  has  overtaken  this 
opium  province.  And  a  few  of  these  photo- 
graphs are  reproduced  here,  all  showing  houses 
of  men  who  were  well-to-do  only  a  few  years 
ago.  It  will  be  plainly  seen  from  the  cuts,  I 
think,  that  these  ruins  are  not  the  result  of  age. 


A  Glimpse  Into  an  Opium  Province    69 

The  sun-dried  bricks  of  the  walls  show  few  signs 
of  crumbling.  The  walls  themselves  are  not 
weather-beaten,  and  have  evidently  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  hand  of  man,  and  not  by  time. 


IV 

CHINA'S  SINCERITY 

CHINA  is  the  land  of  paradox.  If  it  is  an 
absolute,  despotic  monarchy,  it  is  also  a 
very  democratic  country,  with  its  self- 
made  men,  its  powerful  public  opinion,  and  a 
"  states'  rights  "  question  of  its  own.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  corrupt  of  nations  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  standard  of  personal  and  commercial  honesty 
is  probably  higher  in  China  than  in  any  other 
country  in  the  world.  Woman,  in  China,  is 
made  to  serve  ;  her  status  is  so  low  that  it  would 
be  a  discourtesy  even  to  ask  a  man  if  he  has  a 
daughter :  yet  the  ablest  ruler  China  has  had  in 
many  centuries  is  a  woman.  It  is  a  land  where 
the  women  wear  socks  and  trousers,  and  the  men 
wear  stockings  and  robes ;  where  a  man  shakes  his 
own  hand,  not  yours ;  where  white,  not  black,  is 
a  sign  of  mourning;  where  the  compass  points 
south,  not  north;  where  books  are  read  back- 
ward, not  forward ;  where  names  and  titles  are 
put  in  reverse  order,  as  in  our  directories — 
70 


China's  Sincerity  71 

Theodore  Roosevelt  would  be  Roosevelt  Theo- 
dore in  China,  Uncle  Sam  would  be  Sam  Uncle ; 
where  fractions  are  written  upside  down,  as  f, 
not  ^  ;  where  a  bride  wails  bitterly  as  she  is  car- 
ried to  her  wedding,  and  a  man  laughs  when  he 
tells  you  of  his  mother's  death. 

Chinese  life,  or  the  phases  of  it  that  you  see 
along  the  highroads  of  the  northwest,  would  ap- 
pear to  be  a  very  simple,  honest  life,  industrious, 
methodical,  patient  in  poverty.  The  men,  even 
of  the  lowest  classes,  are  courteous  to  a  degree 
that  would  shame  a  Frenchman.  I  have  seen  my 
two  soldiers,  who  earned  ten  or  twenty  cents, 
Mexican,  a  day,  greet  my  cook  with  such  grace 
and  charm  of  manner  that  I  felt  like  a  crude  bar- 
barian as  I  watched  them.  The  simplicity  and 
industry  of  this  life,  as  it  presented  itself  to  me, 
seemed  directly  opposed  to  any  violence  or  out- 
rage. Yet  only  seven  years  ago  Shansi  Province 
was  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most  atrocious  mas- 
sacres in  history,  modern  or  ancient.  During  a 
few  weeks,  in  the  summer  of  1900,  one  hundred 
and  fifty-nine  white  foreigners,  men,  women,  and 
children,  were  killed  within  the  province,  forty- 
six  of  them  in  the  city  of  T'ai  Yuan-fu.  The 
massacre  completely  wiped  out  the  mission 


72  Drugging  a  Nation 

churches  and  schools  and  the  opium  refuges,  the 
only  missionaries  who  escaped  being  those  who 
happened  to  be  away  on  leave  at  the  time.  The 
attack  was  not  directed  at  the  missionaries  as 
such,  but  at  the  foreigners  in  general.  It  was 
widely  believed  among  the  peasantry  that  the 
foreign  devils  made  a  practice  of  cutting  out  the 
eyes,  tongues,  and  various  other  organs  of  chil- 
dren and  women  and  shipping  them,  for  some 
diabolical  purpose,  out  of  the  country.  The 
slaughter  was  directed,  from  beginning  to  end, 
by  the  rabid  Manchu  governor,  Yu  Hsien,  and 
some  of  the  butchering  was  done  by  soldiers 
under  his  personal  command.  But  the  interest- 
ing fact  is  that  the  docile,  long-suffering  people 
of  Shansi  did  some  butchering  on  their  own  ac- 
count, as  soon  as  the  word  was  passed  around 
that  no  questions  would  be  asked  by  the  officials. 
Apparently,  the  Shansi  peasant  can  be  at  one 
time  simple,  industrious,  loyal,  and  at  another 
time  a  slaying,  ravishing  maniac.  The  Chinaman 
himself  is  the  greatest  paradox  of  all.  He  is  the 
product  of  a  civilization  which  sprang  from  a 
germ  and  has  developed  in  a  soil  and  environ- 
ment different  from  anything  within  our  Western 
range  of  experience.  Naturally  he  does  not  see 


China's  Sincerity  73 

human  relations  as  we  see  them.  His  habits  and 
customs  are  enough  different  from  ours  to  appear 
bizarre  to  us ;  but  they  are  no  more  than  surface 
evidences  of  the  difference  between  his  mind  and 
ours.  Thanks  to  our  strong  racial  instinct,  we 
can  be  fairly  certain  of  what  an  Anglo-Saxon,  or 
even  a  European,  will  think  in  certain  deeply 
human  circumstances — in  the  presence  of  death, 
for  instance.  We  cannot  hope  to  understand 
the  mental  processes  of  a  Chinaman.  There  is 
too  great  a  difference  in  the  shape  of  our  heads, 
as  there  is  in  the  texture  of  our  traditions. 

But  we  can  see  quite  clearly  that  the  imperial 
government  of  China  is,  while  it  endures,  a  strong 
and  effective  government.  It  is  significant  that 
the  Chinese  people  rarely  indulge  in  massacres  on 
their  own  account.  Why  not  ?  The  hatred  of 
foreigners  must  be  always  there,  under  the  placid 
surface,  for  these  people  rarely  fail  to  turn  into 
slaying  demons  once  the  officials  let  the  word  be 
passed  around.  There  have  been  thirty- five 
serious  anti-foreign  riots  and  massacres  in  China 
within  thirty-five  years,  besides  the  Boxer  upris- 
ing of  1900 ;  and  among  these  there  was  probably 
not  one  which  the  mandarins  could  not  have 
suppressed  had  they  wished.  The  Boxer  trouble 


74  Drugging  a  Nation 

was  worked  up  by  Yii  Hsien  while  he  was 
governor  of  Shantung  Province.  When  the 
foreign  powers  protested  he  was  transferred  to 
Shansi,  which  had  scarcely  heard  of  the  Boxer 
Society,  and  almost  at  once  there  was  a  "  Boxer  " 
outbreak  and  massacre  in  Shansi.  The  Peking 
government  meanwhile  carried  on  Yii  Hsien's 
horrible  work  at  Peking  and  Tientsin.  The  siege 
of  the  legations  at  Peking  was  conducted  by  im- 
perial soldiers,  not  by  mobs.  During  all  the 
trouble  of  that  bloody  summer,  Yuan  Shi  K'ai, 
who  succeeded  to  the  governorship  in  Shantung, 
seemed  to  have  no  difficulty  in  keeping  that 
province  quiet,  though  it  was  the  scene  of  the 
original  trouble. 

Chang  Chi  Tung,  "  the  great  viceroy,"  subdued 
the  Upper  Yangtse  provinces  with  a  firm  hand, 
though  the  Boxer  difficulty  there  was  complicated 
by  the  ever-seething  revolution.  In  a  word,  the 
officials  in  China  seem  perfectly  able  to  control 
their  populace  and  protect  foreigners.  As  Dr. 
Ferguson,  of  Shanghai,  put  it  to  me,  "  No  other 
government  in  the  world  can  so  effectively  en- 
force a  law  as  the  Chinese  government — when 
they  want  to  !  " 

You  soon  learn,  in  China,  that  you  can  trust  a 


China's  Sincerity  7$ 

Chinaman  to  carry  through  anything  he  agrees 
to  do  for  you.  When  I  reached  T'ai  Yuan-fu  I 
handed  my  interpreter  a  Chinese  draft  for  $200 
(Mexican),  payable  to  bearer,  and  told  him  to  go 
to  the  bank  and  bring  back  the  money.  I  had 
known  John  a  little  over  a  week;  yet  any  one 
who  knows  China  will  understand  that  I  was 
running  no  appreciable  risk.  The  individual 
Chinaman  is  simply  a  part  of  a  family,  the 
family  is  part  of  a  neighbourhood,  the  neighbour- 
hood is  part  of  a  village  or  district,  and  so  on. 
In  all  its  relations  with  the  central  government, 
the  province  is  responsible  for  the  affairs  of  its 
larger  districts,  these  for  the  smaller  districts,  the 
smaller  districts  for  the  villages,  the  villages  for 
the  neighbourhoods,  the  neighbourhoods  for  the 
family,  the  family  for  the  individual.  If  John 
had  disappeared  with  my  money  after  cashing 
the  draft,  and  had  afterwards  been  caught,  pun- 
ishment would  have  been  swift  and  severe. 
Very  likely  he  would  have  lost  his  head.  If  the 
authorities  had  been  unable  to  find  John,  they 
would  have  punished  his  family.  Punishment 
would  surely  have  fallen  on  somebody. 

The  real  effect  of  this  system,  continued  as  it 
has   been   through   unnumbered   centuries,   has 


76  Drugging  a  Nation 

naturally  been  to  develop  a  clear,  keen  sense  of 
personal  responsibility.  For,  whatever  may  oc- 
cur, somebody  is  responsible.  The  family,  in 
order  to  protect  itself,  trains  its  individuals  to 
live  up  to  their  promises,  or  else  not  to  make 
promises.  The  neighbourhood,  well  knowing 
that  it  will  be  held  accountable  for  its  units, 
watches  them  with  a  close  eye.  When  a  new 
family  comes  into  a  neighbourhood,  the  neigh- 
bours crowd  about  and  ask  questions  which  are 
not,  in  view  of  the  facts,  so  impertinent  as  they 
might  sound.  Indeed,  this  sense  of  family  and 
neighbourhood  accountability  is  so  deeply  rooted 
that  it  is  not  uucommon,  on  the  failure  of  a 
merchant  to  meet  his  obligations,  for  his  family 
and  friends  to  step  forward  and  help  him  to 
settle  his  accounts.  It  is  the  only  way  in  which 
they  can  clear  themselves. 

All  these  evidences  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  Chinese  people,  on  the  one  hand,  have 
an  innate  fear  of  and  respect  for  their  govern- 
ment and  their  law,  such  as  they  are ;  and  that 
the  government,  on  the  other  hand,  is,  in  the 
matter  of  enforcing  the  traditional  law,  one  of 
the  most  powerful  governments  on  earth.  None 
but  an  exceedingly  well-organized  government 


China's  Sincerity  77 

could  deliberately  incite  its  people  to  repeated 
riots  and  massacres  without  losing  control  of 
them.  The  Chinese  government  has  seemed  to 
have  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  keeping  the 
people  quiet — when  it  wanted  to.  The  story  of 
Shantung  Province  makes  this  clear.  It  was 
driven  into  what  appeared  to  be  anarchy  by  a 
rabid  governor.  But  only  a  few  months  later 
this  governor's  successor  had  little  difficulty  in 
keeping  the  entire  province  in  almost  perfect 
order  while  the  adjoining  province  was  actually 
at  war  with  the  allied  powers  of  the  world  and 
was  overrun  with  foreign  troops.  No;  a  gov- 
ernment which  has  within  it  the  power,  on  oc- 
casion, to  carry  through  such  an  achievement  as 
this,  can  hardly  be  called  weak. 

We  begin,  then,  by  admitting  that  the  Chinese 
government  has  the  strength  and  the  organiza- 
tion necessary  to  carry  out  any  ordinary  reform 
— if  it  wants  to.  The  putting  down  of  the  opium 
evil  is,  of  course,  no  ordinary  reform.  It  is  an 
undertaking  so  colossal  and  so  desperate  that  it 
staggers  imagination,  as  I  trust  I  have  made 
plain  in  the  preceding  articles.  But  setting 
aside,  for  the  moment,  our  doubts  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  Chinese  government,  or  any  other 


78  Drugging  a  Nation 

government  on  earth,  could  hope  to  check  so 
insidious  and  pervading  an  evil,  we  have  to  con- 
sider other  doubts  which  arise  from  even  a  slight 
acquaintance  with  that  puzzling  organism,  the 
Chinese  official  mind.  If  the  Chinese  business 
man  is,  as  many  think,  the  most  honest  and 
straightforward  business  man  on  earth,  the 
Chinese  official,  or  mandarin,  is  about  the  most 
subtle  and  bewildering.  His  duplicity  is  simply 
beyond  our  understanding.  He  has  a  bland  and 
childish  smile,  but  his  ways  are  peculiar.  Most 
of  us  know  that  our  own  state  department  has  a 
neat  little  custom  of  issuing  letters  to  travellers 
ordering  our  diplomatic  and  consular  representa- 
tives abroad  to  extend  special  courtesies,  and 
sending,  at  the  same  time,  a  notice  to  these  same 
representatives  advising  them  to  take  no  notice 
of  the  letters.  In  Chinese  diplomacy  every- 
thing is  done  in  this  way,  but  very  much  more 
so.  Documents  issued  by  the  Chinese  govern- 
ment usually  bear  about  the  same  relation  to  any 
existing  facts  or  intentions  as  a  Thanksgiving 
proclamation  does.  You  must  be  very  astute, 
indeed,  to  perceive  from  the  speech,  manner,  or 
writing  of  a  mandarin  what  he  is  really  getting 
at.  Motive  underlies  motive ;  self-interest  lies 


China's  Sincerity  79 

deeper  still ;  and  the  base  of  it  all  is  an  Oriental 
conception  of  life  and  affairs  which  cannot  be  so 
remodelled  or  reshaped  as  to  fit  into  our  square- 
shaped  Western  minds.  No  one  else  was  so 
eloquent  on  the  horrors  of  opium  as  the  great 
Li  Hung  Chang,  when  talking  with  foreigners ; 
yet  Li  Hung  Chang  was  one  of  the  largest  pro- 
ducers of  opium  in  China.  When  the  Chinese 
army,  under  imperial  direction,  was  fiercely 
bombarding  the  legations  in  Peking,  the  im- 
perial government  was  officially  sending  fruit 
and  other  delicacies,  accompanied  by  courteous 
notes,  asking  if  there  was  not  something  they 
could  do  for  the  comfort  of  the  hard-pressed 
foreigners. 

This  indirection  would  seem  to  be  the  result 
of  a  constant  effort,  on  the  part  of  everybody  in 
authority,  to  shirk  the  responsibility  for  difficult 
situations.  Under  a  system  which  holds  a  man 
mercilessly  accountable  for  carrying  through  any 
undertaking  for  which  he  is  known  to  be  re- 
sponsible, he  naturally  tries  to  avoid  assuming 
any  responsibility  whatever.  An  official  is  pun- 
ished for  failure  and  rewarded  for  success  in 
China,  as  in  other  countries.  And  the  official 
on  whom  is  saddled  the  extremely  difficult  job 


8o  Drugging  a  Nation 

of  pleasing,  at  one  time,  an  empress  who  believes 
that  a  Boxer  can  render  himself  invisible  to  for- 
eign sharpshooters  by  a  little  mumbling  and 
dancing,  a  set  of  courtiers  and  palace  eunuchs 
who  are  constantly  undermining  one  another  with 
the  deepest  Oriental  guile,  a  populace  with  little 
more  understanding  and  knowledge  of  the  world 
than  the  children  of  Israel  in  the  Sinai  Peninsula, 
and  a  hostile  band  of  keen,  modern  diplomats 
with  trade  interests  and  "  concessions  "  on  their 
tongues  and  machine  guns  and  magazine  rifles  at 
call  in  their  legation  compounds,  is  not  in  for  an 
easy  time. 

It  hardly  seems,  then,  as  if  we  should  blame 
the  Chinese  official  too  harshly  if  his  whole  career 
appears  to  be  made  up  of  a  series  of  "  side-step- 
pings  "  and  "  ducks  " — of  what  the  American 
boxer  aptly  calls  "  foot  work."  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  not  difficult  to  sympathize  with  the 
foreign  diplomat  who  has,  year  after  year,  to  play 
this  baffling  game.  He  is  always  making  progress 
and  never  getting  anywhere.  He  has  his  choice 
of  going  mad  or  settling  down  into  a  confirmed 
and  weary  cynicism.  In  most  cases  he  chooses 
the  latter,  and  ultimately  drifts  into  a  frame  of 
mind  in  which  he  doubts  anything  and  every- 


China's  Sincerity  81 

thing.  He  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  Chinese 
government  is  always  insincere.  It  is  incredible 
to  him  that  a  Chinese  official  could  mean  what 
he  says.  And  so,  when  the  Chinese  government 
declared  against  the  opium  evil,  the  cynical  for- 
eign diplomats  and  traders  at  once  began  looking 
between  and  behind  the  lines  in  the  effort  to  find 
out  what  the  crafty  yellow  men  were  really  get- 
ting at.  That  they  might  mean  what  they  said 
seemed  wholly  out  of  the  question.  But  what 
deep  motive  might  underlie  the  proposal  was  a 
puzzle.  At  first  the  gossips  of  Peking  and  the 
ports  ran  to  the  effect  that  the  real  scheme  was 
to  arouse  the  anti-opium  public  opinion  in  Eng- 
land, and  force  the  British  Indian  government  to 
give  up  its  opium  business.  Very  good,  so  far. 
But  why  ?  In  order  that  China,  by  successfully 
shutting  out  the  Indian  opium,  might  set  up  a 
government  monopoly  of  its  own,  for  revenue,  of 
the  home-grown  drug  ?  This  was  the  first  notion 
at  Peking  and  the  ports.  I  heard  it  voiced  fre- 
quently everywhere.  But  it  proved  a  hard  theory 
to  maintain. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Chinese  government  could 
set  up  a  pretty  effective  government  opium  busi- 
ness, if  it  wanted  to,  without  bothering  about  the 


82  Drugging  a  Nation 

Indian-grown  drug.  Opium  is  produced  every- 
where in  China.  The  demand  has  grown  to  a 
point  where  the  Indian  article  alone  could  not 
begin  to  supply  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
stopping  of  the  importation  is  necessarily  the 
first  step  in  combating  the  evil ;  for,  if  the  Chinese 
should  begin  by  successfully  decreasing  their 
own  production  of  opium,  the  importation  would 
automatically  increase,  and  consumption  remain 
the  same. 

In  the  second  place,  if  it  is  wholly  a  "  revenue  " 
matter  to  the  Chinese  government,  why  give  up 
the  large  annual  revenue  from  customs  duties  on 
the  imported  opium?  In  asking  the  British  to 
stop  their  opium  traffic  the  Chinese  are  proposing 
deliberately  to  sacrifice  $5,000,000  annually  in 
customs  and  liking  duties  on  the  imported  drug, 
or  between  a  fifth  and  a  sixth  of  the  entire  reve- 
nue of  the  imperial  customs. 

One  very  convincing  indication  of  the  sincerity 
of  the  Chinese  government  in  this  matter,  which 
I  will  take  up  in  detail  a  little  later,  is  the  way  in 
which  the  opium  prohibition  is  being  enforced 
by  the  Chinese  authorities.  But  before  going 
into  that,  I  should  like  to  call  attention  to  two 
other  evidences  of  Chinese  sincerity  in  its  war 


China's  Sincerity  83 

on  opium.  The  first  is  the  patent  fact  that  public 
opinion  all  over  China,  among  rich  and  poor, 
mandarins  and  peasants,  has  turned  strongly 
against  the  use  of  opium.  I  have  had  this  in- 
formation from  too  many  sources  to  doubt  it. 
Travellers  from  the  remotest  provinces  are  re- 
porting to  this  effect.  The  anti-opium  sentiment 
is  found  in  the  highest  official  circles,  in  the 
army,  in  the  navy,  in  the  schools.  Within  the 
past  year  or  so  it  has  been  growing  steadily 
stronger.  Opium-smoking  used  to  be  taken  as  a 
matter  of  course ;  now,  where  you  find  a  man 
smoking  too  much,  you  also  find  a  group  of 
friends  apologizing  for  him.  I  have  already  ex- 
plained that  opium-smoking  is  not  tolerated  in 
the  "  new  "  army.  There  is  now  a  rapidly  grow- 
ing number  of  officials  and  merchants  who  refuse 
to  employ  opium-smokers  in  any  capacity. 

Now,  why  is  the  public  opinion  of  China  set- 
ting so  strongly  against  opium?  Even  apart 
from  moral  considerations,  bringing  the  matter 
down  to  a  "  practical  "  basis,  why  is  this  so  ?  I 
will  venture  to  offer  an  answer  to  the  question. 
Said  one  Tientsin  foreign  merchant,  an  American 
who  has  had  unusual  opportunities  to  observe 
conditions  in  Northern  China :  "  If  the  Chinese 


84  Drugging  a  Nation 

do  succeed  in  shutting  down  on  opium,  it  may 
mean  the  end  of  the  foreigners  in  China.  Opium 
is  the  one  thing  that  is  holding  the  Chinese  back 
to-day." 

Ten  or  twelve  of  the  legations  at  Peking  now 
have  "  legation  guards  "  of  from  one  hundred  to 
three  hundred  men  each.  In  all,  there  are  eight- 
een hundred  foreign  soldiers  in  Peking,  "  a  force 
large  enough,"  said  one  officer, "  to  be  an  insult  to 
China,  but  not  large  enough  to  defend  us  should 
they  really  resent  the  insult." 

Twelve  hundred  miles  up  the  Yangtse  River, 
above  the  rapids,  there  is  a  fleet  of  tiny  foreign 
gunboats,  English  and  French,  which  were  car- 
ried up  in  sections  and  put  together  "  to  stay." 
At  every  treaty  port  there  are  one  or  more 
foreign  settlements,  maintained  under  foreign 
laws.  The  Imperial  Maritime  Customs  Service 
of  China  is  directed  and  administered  through- 
out by  foreigners  ;  this,  to  insure  the  proper  col- 
lection of  the  "  indemnity "  money.  Foreign 
"  syndicates  "  have  been  gobbling  up  the  won- 
derful coal  and  iron  deposits  of  China  wherever 
they  could  find  them.  And  so  on.  I  could 
give  many  more  illustrations  of  the  foreign  grip 
on  China,  but  these  will  serve.  And  back  of 


China's  Sincerity  85 

these  facts  looms  the  always  impending  "  parti- 
tion of  China."  The  Chinese  are  not  fools. 
They  have  sat  tight,  wearing  that  inscrutable 
smile,  while  the  foreigners  discussed  the  cutting 
up  of  China  as  if  it  were  a  huge  cake.  They 
have  seen  the  Japanese,  a  race  of  little  brown 
men,  inhabiting  a  few  little  islands,  face  the 
dreaded  bear  of  Russia  and  drive  it  back  into 
Siberia.  Now,  at  last,  these  patient  Chinamen 
are  picking  up  some  odds  and  ends  of  Western 
science.  They  are  building  railroads,  and  manu- 
facturing the  rails  for  them.  They  are  talking 
about  saving  China  "  for  the  Chinese."  In  1906 
they  mobilized  an  army  of  30,000  "  modern  " 
troops  for  manoeuvres  in  Honan  Province.  If 
they  are  to  succeed  with  this  notion,  they  must 
begin  at  the  beginning.  Opium  is  dragging 
them  down  hill.  Opium  will  not  build  railroads- 
Opium  will  not  win  battles.  Opium  will  not  ad- 
minister the  affairs  of  the  hugest  nation  on  earth. 
Therefore,  no  matter  what  it  costs  in  revenue,  no 
matter  how  staggering  the  necessary  reform  and 
reorganization,  opium  must  go. 

China  may  be  a  puzzling  land.  The  Chinese 
officials  may  be  capable  of  the  most  baffling 
duplicity.  But  we  are  forced  to  believe  that 


86  Drugging  a  Nation 

they  are  "  sincere "  in  putting  down  the  opium 
traffic.  It  appears,  for  China,  to  be  a  case  of  sink 
or  swim. 

The  next  question  would  seem  to  be,  if  the 
Chinese  are  really  trying  to  put  down  the  opium 
traffic,  how  are  they  succeeding  ?  We  will  pass 
over  that  part  of  the  problem  which  relates  to 
Great  Britain  and  the  Indian  opium  trade,  with 
the  idea  of  taking  it  up  in  a  later  chapter.  Let 
us  consider  now  what  China,  flabby,  backward, 
long-suffering  China,  is  actually  doing  in  this 
tremendous  effort  to  cure  her  disorder  in  order 
that  she  may  take  a  new  place  among  the  nations. 
We  will  deal  here  with  the  enforcement  of  the 
edict  in  Shansi  Province,  taking  up  in  later 
chapters  the  results  of  the  prohibition  movement 
in  the  other  provinces. 

The  plan  outlined  in  the  edicts  prohibiting 
opium  is  clear,  direct,  forcible.  It  was  evidently 
meant  to  be  effective.  It  provides  (first)  that  the 
governors  of  the  provinces  shall  ascertain, 
through  the  local  authorities,  the  exact  number 
of  acres  under  poppy  cultivation.  The  area  of 
the  land  used  for  this  purpose  shall  then  be  cut 
down  by  one-ninth  part  each  year,  «  so  that  at 
the  end  of  nine  years  there  will  be  no  more  land 


China's  Sincerity  87 

used  for  such  purposes,  and  the  land  thus 
disused  " — I  am  quoting  here  from  the  China- 
man who  translated  the  regulations  for  me — 
"  shall  never  be  used  for  the  said  purposes  again. 
Should  the  owners  of  such  lands  disobey  the 
decree,  their  lands  shall  be  confiscated.  Local 
officials  who  make  special  efforts  and  be  able  to 
stop  the  cultivation  of  poppy  before  the  said 
time,  they  shall  be  rewarded  with  promotions." 
The  plan  provides  (second)  that  "  all  smokers, 
irrespective  of  class  or  sex,  must  go  to  the  nearest 
authorities  to  get  certificates,  in  which  they  are 
to  write  their  names,  addresses,  profession,  ages, 
and  the  amount  of  opium  smoked  each  day." 
Latitude  is  allowed  smokers  over  sixty  years  of 
age,  but  those  under  sixty  "  must  get  cured  be- 
fore arriving  at  sixty  years  of  age.  Persons  who 
smoke  or  buy  opium  without  certificates  will  be 
punished.  No  new  smokers  will  be  allowed 
from  the  date  of  prohibition.  The  amount  of 
opium  supplied  to  each  smoker  must  decrease  by 
one-third  each  year,  so  that  within  a  few  years 
there  will  be  no  opium  smoked  at  all."  Officials 
who  overstep  the  law  are  to  be  deprived  of  their 
rank.  In  the  case  of  common  people,  "  their 
names  will  be  posted  up  thoroughfares,  and  will 


88  Drugging  a  Nation 

be  deprived  of  privileges  in  all  public  gather- 
ings." 

Opium  dens,  as  also  all  restaurants,  hotels, 
and  wine-shops  which  provide  couches  and 
lamps  for  smokers  were  to  be  closed  at  once.  If 
any  regular  opium  den  was  found  open  after  the 
prohibition  (May,  1907),  the  property  would  be 
confiscated.  No  new  stores  for  the  sale  of  opium 
could  be  opened.  "  Good  opium  remedies  must 
be  prepared.  Multiply  the  number  of  anti- 
opium  clubs.  If  any  citizens  who  can,  through 
their  efforts,  get  many  people  cured,  they  will  be 
rewarded.  .  .  .  All  officials,  and  the  officers 
of  the  army  and  navy,  and  professors  of  schools, 
colleges,  and  universities,  must  all  get  cured 
within  six  months."  And  further,  it  was  decided 
to  "  open  negotiations  with  Great  Britain,  arrang- 
ing with  that  power  to  have  less  and  less  opium 
imported  into  China  each  year,  till  at  the  end  of 
nine  years  no  opium  will  be  imported  at  all." 
The  Chinese,  it  is  evident,  are  not  wanting  in 
hopeful  sentiment.  Reading  this,  it  is  almost 
possible  to  forget  that  India  needs  the  money. 

"  There  is  another  drug,  called  morphia,  which 
has  done  (thus  my  Chinaman's  translation)  or 
is  doing  more  harm  than  opium.  The  custom 


China's  Sincerity  89 

authorities  are  to  be  instructed  to  prohibit  strictly 
the  importation  of  it,  except  for  medical  uses." 

A  clean-cut  programme,  this;  apparently 
meant  to  be  effective.  It  was  with  no  small 
curiosity  that  I  looked  about  in  Shansi  Prov- 
ince to  see  whether  there  seemed  any  likelihood 
of  enforcement.  The  time  was  ripe.  It  was 
April;  in  May  the  six  months  would  be  up. 
Opium  had  ruled  in  Shansi:  could  they  hope 
to  depose  it  before  the  final  havoc  should  be 
wrought  ? 

The  nub  of  the  situation  was,  of  course,  the 
limiting  of  the  crop.  Theoretically,  it  should  be 
easier  to  prohibit  opium  than  to  prohibit  alco- 
holic drinks.  Wines  and  liquors  are  made  from 
grains  and  fruits  which  must  be  grown  anyway, 
for  purposes  of  food.  It  would  not  do  to  at- 
tempt to  prohibit  liquor  by  stopping  the  cultiva- 
tion of  grains  and  fruits.  The  poppy,  on  the 
other  hand,  produces  nothing  but  opium  and  its 
alkaloids.  In  stopping  the  growth  of  the  poppy 
you  are  depriving  man  of  no  useful  or  necessary 
article.  The  poppy  must  be  grown  in  the  open, 
along  the  river-bottoms  (where  the  roads  run). 
It  cannot  be  hidden.  As  government  regulating 
goes,  nothing  is  easier  than  to  find  a  field  of 


90  Drugging  a  Nation 

poppies  and  measure  it.  The  plans  of  the  Shansi 
farmers  for  the  coming  year  should  throw  some 
light  on  the  sincerity  of  the  opium  reforms. 
Were  they  really  arranging  to  plant  less  opium  ? 
Yes,  they  were.  Reports  came  to  me  from 
every  side,  and  all  to  the  same  effect.  West  and 
northwest  of  T'ai  Yuan-fu  many  of  the  farmers 
had  announced  that  they  were  planting  no  pop- 
pies at  all.  This,  remember,  was  in  April : 
planting  time  was  near ;  it  was  a  practical  propo- 
sition to  those  Shansi  peasants.  In  other  re- 
gions men  were  planting  either  none  at  all,  or 
"less  than  last  year."  The  reason  generally 
given  was  that  the  closing  of  the  dens  in  the 
cities  had  lessened  the  demand  for  opium. 

The  officials  were  planning  not  only  to  make 
poppy-growing  unprofitable  to  the  farmers,  they 
were  planning  also  to  advise  and  assist  them  in 
the  substitution  of  some  other  crop  for  the  poppy. 
But  here  they  encountered  one  of  the  peculiar 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  opium  reform,  the  trans- 
portation problem.  All  transportation,  off  the 
railroads,  is  slow  and  costly.  No  other  product 
is  so  easy  to  transport  as  opium.  A  man  can 
carry  several  hundred  dollars'  worth  on  his 
person;  a  man  with  a  mule  can  carry  several 


China's  Sincerity  91 

thousand  dollars'  worth.  That  is  one  of  the 
reasons  why  opium  is  a  more  profitable  crop 
than  potatoes  or  wheat.  But  the  law  descends 
without  waiting  for  solutions  of  all  the  problems 
involved.  The  closing  of  the  opium  dens  all 
over  Shansi  had  the  immediate  effect  of  limiting 
the  crop.  It  also  had  the  effect  of  driving  out  of 
business  a  great  many  firms  engaged  in  the 
manufacture  of  pipes  and  lamps.  Sixty-two 
manufacturing  houses  in  one  city,  Taiku,  either 
went  out  of  business  altogether  during  the  spring 
months,  or  turned  to  new  enterprises.  I  add  an 
interesting  bit  of  evidence  as  to  the  effectiveness 
of  the  enforcement.  It  is  from  a  missionary. 

"  I  was  calling  on  one  of  the  foreigners  in  T'ai 
Yuan-fu  and  found  a  beggar  lying  on  one  of  the 
door-steps,  with  his  pipe  and  lamp  all  going.  I 
told  him  to  clear  out.  I  asked  him  why  he  was 
there,  and  he  told  me  he  had  nowhere  else  to  go, 
now  that  the  smoking-dens  were  all  closed,  and 
that  he  had  to  find  some  sheltered  nook  where 
he  could  have  his  smoke." 

It  was  not  the  plan  to  close  the  opium  sale 
shops  ;  theoretically,  it  will  take  nine  or  ten  years 
to  do  that.  But  after  closing  all  the  places  where 
opium  was  smoked  socially  and  publicly,  it  should 


92  Drugging  a  Nation 

become  possible  to  register  all  the  individuals 
who  buy  the  drug  for  home  consumption.  It 
was  the  closing  of  the  dens,  the  places  for  public 
smoking,  in  all  the  cities  of  Shansi,  which  had 
the  immediate  effect  of  limiting  the  crop  and  the 
manufacture  of  smoking  instruments.  The  one 
hundred  and  twenty-nine  dens  of  T'ai  Yuan-fu 
were  all  closed  before  I  arrived  there.  In  T'ai 
Yuan-fu,  as  in  Peking,  you  could  buy  an  opium- 
smoker's  outfit  for  next  to  nothing.  Cloisonne 
pipes,  mounted  with  ivory  and  jade,  were  offered 
at  absurd  prices. 

One  of  the  saddest  features  of  the  situation  in 
Shansi  is  the  activity  of  the  opium-cure  fraud. 
The  opium-smoking  habit  can  be  cured,  once 
the  social  element  is  eliminated,  as  easily  as  the 
morphine  or  cocaine  habits — more  easily,  some 
would  claim.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  a  de- 
graded, degenerate  being  can  be  made  over,  in  a 
week,  into  a  normal,  healthy  being ;  but  it  does 
not  seem  to  be  very  difficult  to  tide  even  the 
confirmed  smoker  over  the  discomfort  and  dan- 
ger that  attend  breaking  off  the  habit.  In  Shansi, 
as  in  all  the  opium  provinces,  "  opium  refuges  " 
are  maintained  by  the  various  missions.  The 
usual  plan  is  to  charge  a  small  fee  for  the  medi- 


China's  Sincerity  93 

cines  administered,  in  order  to  make  the  refuges 
self-supporting.  It  takes  a  week  or  ten  days  to 
effect  a  cure  by  the  methods  usually  followed. 
The  patient  is  confined  to  a  room,  less  and  less 
opium  is  allowed  from  day  to  day,  stimulants 
(either  strychnine  or  atropine)  are  administered, 
and  local  symptoms  are  treated  as  may  seem 
necessary  to  the  physician  in  charge.  Some  of 
the  missions  at  first  took  a  stand  against  the  re- 
duction method,  believing  that  medical  mission- 
aries should  not  administer  opium  in  any  form ; 
but  after  a  death  or  two  they  accepted  the  inevi- 
table compromise,  recognizing  that  it  is  not  safe 
to  shut  down  the  supply  too  abruptly.  But  the 
number  of  these  refuges  is  pitifully  small  beside 
the  extent  of  the  evil.  They  have  been  at  work 
for  a  generation  without  bringing  about  any  per- 
ceptible change  in  the  situation.  There  are  now 
fewer  refuges  than  formerly  in  Shansi  Province, 
for  none  of  the  missions  is  fully  recruited  as  yet, 
after  the  terrible  set-back  of  1900. 

The  opium-cure  faker  in  China,  as  in  the 
United  States  and  Europe,  usually  sells  morphia 
under  another  name.  Dr.  Edwards,  the  author 
of  "  Fire  and  Sword  in  Shansi,"  last  year  spent 
five  weeks  in  travelling  northwest  of  T'ai  Yuan-fu, 


94  Drugging  a  Nation 

and  reported  finding  a  great  many  men  employed 
in  selling  so-called  anti-opium  medicines.  The 
demand  for  cures  existed  everywhere.  Now  that 
the  popular  sentiment  is  setting  in  so  strongly 
against  the  opium  habit,  the  Chinese  are  pecu- 
liarly easy  prey  for  these  rascals.  They  have 
no  conception  of  medicine  as  it  is  practiced  in 
Western  countries,  and  eagerly  take  whatever  is 
offered  to  them  in  the  guise  of  a  "  cure."  The 
following,  told  to  me  by  an  Englishman  who 
lives  in  the  province,  illustrates  this  : 

"  There  is  a  lot  of  mischief  being  done  in 
Shansi  just  now  by  men  who  have  bought  drugs 
in  Tientsin,  are  selling  them  at  random,  and  mak- 
ing a  good  thing  for  themselves.  I  was  travelling 
one  day  and  was  taken  violently  ill,  and  I  hap- 
pened to  reach  a  place  where  I  knew  a  man  who 
had  some  drugs,  so  I  sent  for  him  and  asked  him  to 
bring  me  some  medicine.  He  came  along  with 
three  bottles,  none  of  which  was  labelled.  He 
could  not  tell  me  what  any  one  of  them  contained. 
He  said  they  were  all  good  for  stomach-ache, 
and  proposed  to  mix  the  three  up  and  give  me 
a  good,  strong  dose.  It  is  needless  to  say  I  re- 
fused. That  man  is  running  a  proper  establish- 
ment and  making  a  lot  of  money  on  the  drugs  he 


China's  Sincerity  95 

sells,  and  that  is  all  he  knows  about  the  busi- 
ness." 

The  upshot  of  my  investigations  and  inquiries 
in  Shansi  was  that  the  anti-opium  edicts  were  be- 
ing enforced  to  the  letter.  This  conclusion 
reached,  I  naturally  looked  about  to  find  the  man 
behind  the  enforcement.  Judging  from  the  work 
done,  he  should  prove  worth  seeing.  Further 
inquiries  drew  out  the  information  that  he  was 
one  of  the  three  rulers  of  the  province,  with  the 
title  of  provincial  judge,  and  that  his  name  was 
Ting  Pao  Chuen. 

Calling  upon  a  prominent  Chinese  official  is,  to 
a  plain,  democratic  person,  rather  an  impressive 
undertaking.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Sowerby  had  kindly 
volunteered  to  act  as  interpreter,  and  him  I  im- 
pressed for  instructor  and  guide  through  the 
mazes  of  official  etiquette.  It  was  arranged  that 
I  should  call  at  Mr.  Sowerby's  compound  at  a 
quarter  to  four.  From  there  we  would  each  ride 
in  a  Peking  cart  with  a  driver  and  one  extra 
servant  in  front.  There  was  nothing,  apparently, 
for  the  extra  servant  to  do ;  but  it  was  vitally 
important  that  he  should  sit  on  the  front  platform 
of  the  cart. 

A  Peking  cart  is  a  red-and-blue  dog  house, 


96  Drugging  a  Nation 

balanced,without  springs,  on  an  axle  between  two 
heavy  wheels.  The  sides,  back,  and  rounding 
roof  are  covered  with  blue  cloth.  A  curtain 
hangs  in  front.  In  the  middle  of  each  side  is  a 
tiny  window,  and  it  is  at  such  windows  that  you 
occasionally  get  the  only  glimpses  you  are  ever 
likely  to  get  of  Chinese  ladies.  There  is  no  seat 
in  a  Peking  cart ;  you  sit  on  the  padded  floor. 
When  you  get  in,  the  servant  holds  up  the  front 
curtain,  you  vault  to  the  front  platform,  and, 
placing  your  hands  on  the  floor,  propel  yourself 
backward,  with  as  much  dignity  as  possible,  tak- 
ing care  not  to  knock  your  hat  against  the  roof, 
until  you  have  disappeared  inside.  If  you  are 
long  of  leg,  your  feet  will  stick  out  in  front  of  the 
curtain,  leaving  scant  room  for  the  two  servants, 
who  sit,  one  on  each  side,  with  their  feet  hanging 
down  in  front  of  the  wheels.  The  two  carts,  two 
drivers,  and  two  extra  servants,  set  out  from 
the  Baptist  Mission  compound,  to  convey  Mr. 
Sowerby  and  me  to  the  Yamen,  or  official  resi- 
dence, of  His  Excellency. 

Every  Yamen  has  three  great  gates  barring  the 
way  to  the  inner  compound.  If  the  resident 
official  wishes  to  humiliate  you,  he  has  his  man 
stop  your  cart  at  the  first  gate  and  compels  you 


China's  Sincerity  97 

to  enter  on  foot.  Fortunately  for  us,  since  it 
was  raining  hard,  His  Excellency  had  chosen  to 
treat  us  with  marked  courtesy.  The  carts  halted 
at  the  second  gate  while  Mr.  Sowerby's  servant 
ran  in  with  our  red  Chinese  cards.  There  was  a 
brief  wait,  and  then  we  drove  on  through  a  long 
courtyard  to  the  inner  or  screen  gate,  where 
massive  timbered  doors  were  closed  against  us. 
Soon  these  swung  open;  the  carts  crossed  a 
paved  yard  and  pulled  up  under  the  projecting 
roof  of  the  Yamen  porch  ;  and  we  scrambled 
down  from  the  carts,  while  two  tall  mandarins,  in 
official  caps  and  buttons,  dressed  in  flowing 
robes  of  silk  and  embroidery,  came  rapidly  for- 
ward to  meet  us.  One  of  these,  the  younger  and 
shorter,  I  recognized  as  Mr.  Wen,  the  interpreter 
for  the  Shansi  foreign  bureau. 

The  other  mandarin  was  a  man  of  ability  and 
charm.  Some  of  us,  perhaps,  have  formed  our 
notion  of  the  Chinaman  from  the  Cantonese  laun- 
dryman  type  which  we  may  have  seen  at  his  bench 
or  on  the  Third  Avenue  elevated  railway  in  New 
York.  This  would  be  about  as  accurate  as  to 
call  the  coster  at  his  barrow  the  typical  English- 
man ;  just  about  as  accurate  as  to  call  the  Bowery 
loafer  the  typical  American.  His  Excellency  ap- 


98  Drugging  a  Nation 

peared  to  be  close  to  six  feet  in  height ;  he  was 
erect  and  lithe  of  figure,  with  marked  physical 
grace.  He  greeted  Mr.  Sowerby  by  clasping  his 
hands  before  his  breast  and  bowing,  then  turned, 
and  with  a  genial  smile  extended  his  right  hand 
to  grip  mine.  He  used  no  English,  but  the 
Chinese  language,  as  he  spoke  it,  was  both  dig- 
nified and  musical,  and  not  at  all  like  the  sing- 
song jabbering  I  had  heard  on  the  streets  and 
about  the  hotels. 

Ting  led  the  way  into  a  reception-room  which 
was  furnished  in  red  cloth  and  dark  woods. 
There  was  a  seat  and  a  table  against  each  side, 
and  two  red  cushions  on  the  edge  of  a  platform 
across  the  end  of  the  room,  with  a  low  table  be- 
tween them.  An  attendant  appeared  with  tea. 
Ting  took  a  covered  tea  bowl  in  his  two  hands, 
extended  it  towards  me,  bowed,  then  placed  it  on 
the  low  stand — thus  indicating  the  seat  which  I 
was  to  take,  on  the  platform.  Mr.  Wen  said,  in 
my  ear,  "  Sit  down."  Mr.  Sowerby  was  placed 
at  the  other  side  of  the  stand ;  the  two  Chinese 
gentlemen  seated  themselves  at  the  two  side- 
tables,  facing  each  other.  One  thing  I  remem- 
bered from  Mr.  Sowerby's  coaching — I  must  not 
touch  my  bowl  of  tea.  I  must  not  even  look  at 


China's  Sincerity  99 

it  The  tea  is  not  to  drink  ;  it  is  brought  in 
order  that  the  caller  may  be  enabled  to  take  his 
leave  gracefully.  The  Chinese  gentlefolk  are  so 
wedded  to  life's  little  ceremonies  that  guest  and 
host  cannot  bring  themselves  to  talk  right  out 
about  terminating  a  visit.  The  guest  would 
shiver  at  the  notion  of  saying,  "  Well,  I  must  go, 
now."  Instead,  he  fingers  his  tea  bowl,  or  per- 
haps merely  glances  at  it ;  and  then  he  and  his 
host  both  rise. 

His  Excellency  fixed  his  eyes  on  me  and  ut- 
tered a  deliberate,  musical  sentence.  "  He  says," 
translated  Mr.  Sowerby,  "  that  you  have  come  to 
help  China."  I  am  afraid  I  blushed  at  this.  It 
had  not  occurred  to  me  to  state  my  mission  in 
just  those  words.  I  replied  that  I  had  come,  as 
a  journalist,  to  learn  the  truth  about  the  opium 
question.  We  talked  for  an  hour  about  the  won- 
derful warfare  which  China  is  waging  against  her 
besetting  vice.  "  China  is  sincere  in  this  strug- 
gle," he  said.  "  Public  opinion  was  never  more 
determined."  He  asked  me  if  I  had  investi- 
gated the  new  Malay  drug  which  had  lately  been 
heralded  as  a  specific  for  opium-poisoning.  "  If," 
he  said,  "  you  should  learn  of  any  real  cure,  while 
you  are  investigating  this  subject,  I  wish  you 


loo  Drugging  a  Nation 

would  advise  me  about  it."  I  promised  him  I 
would  do  so.  I  had  already  heard  from  a  num- 
ber of  sources  that  Ting  was  personally  giving 
two  to  three  thousand  taels  a  month  (a  tael  is 
about  seventy-five  cents)  to  the  support  of  opium 
refuges  and  for  the  purchase  of  drugs  for  distri- 
bution among  the  poor.  "  China  is  sick,"  he 
said ;  "  she  must  be  cured  so  that  she  may  hold 
up  her  head  among  the  nations." 

Shortly  after  we  had  driven  back  through  the 
rain  and  had  mounted  the  stairs  to  Mr.  Sowerby's 
library,  a  Yamen  runner  was  shown  into  the 
room,  bearing  presents  from  the  provincial  judge. 
The  runner  bowed  to  me  and  presented  his  tray. 
On  it,  beside  the  large  red  "  card  "  of  Ting  Pao 
Chuen,  were  four  bottles  of  native  wine,  or 
"  shumshoo,"  two  cans  of  beef  tongue,  and  two 
cans  of  sauerkraut ! 


V 
SOWING  THE  WIND  IN  CHINA— SHANGHAI 

IN  her  development  China  is  dependent  on 
the  adoption  of  Western  ideas  and  is  in- 
fluenced by  the  example  set  by  Western 
civilization.  This  modernizing  influence  is 
strongest  at  the  point  where  the  Westerner  meets 
the  Chinaman,  where  the  two  civilizations  come 
into  direct  contact.  At  Shanghai,  Tientsin, 
Hankow,  Hongkong,  and  the  other  ports  there 
are  some  thirty  to  forty  thousand  Europeans, 
Englishmen,  and  Americans.  They  build  splen- 
did buildings  and  lay  good  pavements.  They 
bring  with  them  the  best  liquors.  The  life  they 
live  gives  about  as  accurate  an  impression  of  West- 
ern civilization — of  what  the  Western  nations 
stand  for — as  the  great  majority  of  the  Chinese 
(a  most  observing  race)  are  ever  likely  to  receive. 
We  have  examined  into  China's  sincerity,  now 
let  us  examine  into  the  honesty  of  purpose  of 
the  foreign  "  concessions  "  and  "  settlements  " 
which  fringe  the  China  Coast.  If  these  commu- 
nities are  representing  our  civilization  out  there, 

IOX 


1O2  Drugging  a  Nation 

it  seems  fair  to  ask  whether  they  are  representing 
it  well ;  for  if  they  are  misrepresenting  us,  if  they 
are  contributing  to  the  sort  of  international  mis- 
understanding which  breeds  trouble,  we  may  as 
well  know  it. 

When,  in  the  course  of  her  gropings  and  strug- 
glings  towards  civilization,  China  turns  for  en- 
lightenment to  the  great,  successful  nations  of 
Europe  and  America,  what  does  she  see  ?  Well, 
for  one  thing,  she  sees  Shanghai. 

Shanghai  has  been  called  the  Paris  of  the  ex- 
treme East.  It  is  the  paradise  of  the  adventurer 
and  the  adventuress,  of  the  gambler,  the  beach- 
comber, and  the  long-chance  promoter.  Midway 
of  the  China  Coast,  at  the  mouth  of  the  mighty 
Yangtse  River,  it  is  the  principal  port  of  entrance 
into  China.  From  England,  Germany,  France, 
Australia,  Japan,  the  United  States,  and  Canada 
comes  an  endless  column  of  steamships  to 
Shanghai.  To  Hongkong,  Saigon,  Bangkok, 
Singapore,  Chefoo,  Tientsin,  and  the  uppermost 
ports  of  the  Yangtse,  1,250  miles  inland,  go  end- 
less columns  of  steamships  from  Shanghai.  And 
of  the  travellers  on  these  ships  nearly  all  have,  or 
expect  to  have,  or  have  had,  business  or  pleasure 
at  Shanghai. 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         103 

It  is  the  most  truly  cosmopolitan  city  in  the 
world ;  for  Paris,  after  all,  is  mainly  French  ;  Lon- 
don, after  all,  is  mainly  English ;  New  York,  after 
ail,  is  mainly  American.  Shanghai  has  its 
French  hotels,  its  imposing  German  Club,  its 
English  Country  Club,  its  race-track,  its  Russian 
Bank,  its  Japanese  mercantile  houses,  its  Ameri- 
can post-office.  It  is  ruled  by  a  council  of  Eng- 
lishmen, Germans,  and  Americans.  It  is  policed 
by  English  bobbies,  Irishmen,  Sikhs  from  India, 
and  Chinamen.  On  the  Bubbling  Well  Road,  of 
a  sunny  spring  afternoon,  where  the  latest  thing 
in  motor  cars  weaves  through  the  line  of  smart 
carriages,  you  may  see  Spaniard  elbowing  Fili- 
pino, Portuguese  jostling  Parsee,  Austrian  chat- 
ting with  Bavarian ;  and  they  all  talk,  gamble, 
drink,  and  buy  in  pidgin  English. 

This  settlement  of  fifteen  thousand  Europeans, 
living  apart  from  that  public  opinion  which  com- 
pells  the  maintenance  of  a  social  standard  in 
every  European  country,  and  indifferent  to  that 
local  public  opinion  which  keeps  up  a  certain 
curious  standard  among  the  Chinese  themselves, 
seems  to  have  practically  no  standard  at  all.  The 
problem  of  every  decent  American  or  English- 
man who  finds  himself  established  in  business  is 


104  Drugging  a  Nation 

whether  he  dare  bring  his  wife  and  family  and 
introduce  them  into  circles  so  degraded  that 
families  disintegrate  and  children  grow  up  under 
disheartening  influences.  The  heavy  drinking 
of  the  China  Coast  ports  is  proverbial,  yet  the 
drinking  seems  little  more  than  an  incident  in  a 
city  where  the  social  atmosphere  is  tainted  and 
altogether  unwholesome. 

I  stood  one  night  in  the  barroom  of  one  of  the 
big  hotels.  It  was  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  nearly  every  one  of  the  dozen  white  men  in 
the  room  was  more  or  less  drunk.  They  were 
roaring  out  maudlin  songs,  and  shouting  inco- 
herent cries.  Two  men,  well-dressed  gentlemen, 
were  on  the  floor.  And  behind  the  bar,  yawn- 
ing, waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  close  up  and 
go  to  sleep,  stood  two  Chinese  men  and  one  boy. 
They  were  neat,  respectful,  and  perfectly  sober. 
Their  almond  eyes  flitted  about  the  room,  taking 
in  every  detail  of  that  beastly  scene.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  say  what  they  were  thinking, 
but  I  observed  that  they  did  not  smile  as  a  China- 
man usually  does.  Perhaps,  to  the  reader  who 
does  not  know  the  China  Coast,  it  seems  unfair 
to  cite  this  case  as  an  example  of  the  active  in- 
fluence of  our  civilization  in  China.  I  will  not 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         105 

do  so.  I  will  merely  ask  if  you  could  ever  hope 
to  make  those  three  young  Chinamen  believe 
that  our  civilization  is  superior  to  theirs. 

Where  such  a  low  moral  tone  prevails,  in  a  self- 
governing  community,  it  is  bound  to  limit  the 
perception  and  the  power  of  the  government  of 
that  community.  Let  any  observing  visitor  ac- 
quaint himself  with  Shanghai  and  its  social  and 
moral  standards  (which  will  not  be  difficult,  for 
these  will  be  thrust  upon  him  soon  after  his  ar- 
rival) and  he  will  soon  see  for  himself  that  the 
residents  of  Shanghai,  while  they  freely  and  hotly 
criticize  their  council,  never  accuse  it  of  priggish- 
ness  or  of  moral  restraint.  This  is  enough  to 
show  that  the  council  makes  no  effort  to  oppose 
the  prevailing  sentiment.  The  gambling  business 
attains,  in  Shanghai,  to  the  altitude  of  a  consider- 
able industry.  During  the  race  weeks,  spring 
and  fall,  the  vacant  lots  near  the  race-track  are 
rented  at  high  rates  by  those  gamblers  of  all 
nations  who  have  no  regular  quarters,  and  the 
games  go  on  merrily  in  the  open  air,  within  full 
view  of  the  crowds  in  the  road.  Now  seven  of 
the  nine  members  of  the  council  are  Englishmen. 
English  ideas  are  supposed  to  prevail  in  the  set- 
tlement, feebly  seconded  by  German  and  Ameri- 


106  Drugging  a  Nation 

can.  And  the  laws  under  which  Shanghai  is 
theoretically  governed  forbid  gambling. 

All  the  lower  forms  of  organized  vice  combine 
to  form  a  large  and  highly  profitable  branch  of 
Shanghai's  commerce.  Partly  because  of  the 
willingness  of  the  locally  stronger  nations  to 
shoulder  off  the  responsibility  for  a  disgraceful 
state  of  things,  and  partly  because  of  the  number 
of  adventurous  and  unprincipled  Americans  who 
have  drained  off  to  the  China  Coast,  America  has 
had  to  endure  more  than  her  share  of  the  blame 
for  this  condition.  For  years  every  degraded 
woman  who  could  speak  the  language  has  called 
herself  an  "  American  girl " ;  until  the  term, 
which  at  home  arouses  a  natural  pride,  has  grown 
so  unpleasant  that  decent  Americans  have  chafed 
under  the  insult.  To-day  it  is  best  not  to  use 
the  phrase  "  American  girl  "  on  the  China  Coast. 

Of  the  other  and  less  vicious  sorts  of  adven- 
turers who  turn  up  like  bad  pennies  at  Shanghai, 
the  beach-comber  is  easily  the  most  picturesque. 
Many  writers,  notably  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
have  employed  him  as  a  character  in  fiction. 
The  majority  of  the  beach-combers  probably  are 
or  have  been  seafaring  men.  Next  in  numerical 
order,  probably,  come  the  discharged  soldiers  and 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         107 

the  deserters.  It  takes  either  a  certain  amount 
of  money  or  a  certain  amount  of  ability  for  any 
unattached  American  or  European  to  get  out  to 
the  China  Coast,  and  an  equal  amount  for  him  to 
get  back.  Therefore  the  stranded  soldiers  and 
sailors,  brought  out  there  at  the  cost  of  nation  or 
ship  owner,  beating  their  way  from  port  to  port, 
drinking,  gambling,  starving,  ready  for  any  du- 
bious enterprise  that  promises  quick  returns  on  a 
small  investment,  are  a  sorry  lot.  The  sharps, 
swindlers,  and  shadowy  promoters,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  men  necessarily  possessed  either  of 
money  or  wit  sufficient  to  get  them  out  to  China, 
and  not  unnaturally  they  represent  the  higher 
grades  of  their  various  crafts.  From  Peking  to 
Hongkong,  the  coast  is  infested  with  these  gen- 
tlemanly rascals,  each  with  impressive  garments 
and  a  convincing  story.  Josiah  Flynt  once  wrote 
a  tale  of  some  enthusiastic  young  promoters  who 
undertook,  at  a  considerable  outlay  in  capital  and 
in  personal  risk,  to  sell  a  steam  calliope  to  the 
Grand  Lama  of  Thibet.  After  a  brief  acquaint- 
ance with  the  diverse  and  ingenious  schemes  that 
sprout,  flower,  and  go  to  seed  on  the  China  Coast, 
this  tale  seems  not  nearly  so  improbable  as  it  per- 
haps sounds  to  the  casual  reader. 


lo8  Drugging  a  Nation 

Other,  and  more  recent,  types  of  adventurers 
are  the  stranded  free-lance  journalist  and  camp- 
followers  who  were  lured  Eastward  by  the  pros- 
pect of  pickings  along  the  trails  of  the  Japanese 
and  Russian  armies  during  the  late  war,  and  who 
later  found  themselves  unable  to  get  back  home. 
In  1906,  Consul-General  Rodgers,  of  Shanghai, 
reported  as  follows  on  the  subject  of  unscrupu- 
lous Americans  who  have  been  imposing  on  the 
Chinese  to  the  detriment  of  American  trade : 

"  There  are  many  things  which  can  be  given  as 
current  reasons  for  retarding  American  trade  in 
the  Orient.  The  advent  of  a  class  of  Americans, 
like  those  who  came  from  Manila  after  a  brief  ex- 
perience there,  and  those  who  tried  their  fortunes 
in  connection  with  the  events  of  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War,  has  done  a  great  deal  to  injure  the 
American  name  and  reputation  with  the  Chinese. 
This  class,  usually  indigent,  has,  by  reason  of  im- 
position upon  the  Chinese,  destroyed  to  some  ex- 
tent a  confidence  which  has  existed  for  many 
years  and  which  had  borne  good  fruit.  There 
are  good  reasons  for  saying  that  every  American 
firm  which  contemplates  sending  a  representative 
to  China  should  be  very  certain  of  his  character, 
and,  other  things  being  equal,  should  choose  the 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         109 

quiet,  orderly  person  rather  than  the  reverse  type, 
in  spite  of  the  current  opinion  that  such  are  in- 
dicated for  the  Orient." 

If  Shanghai  is  the  sort  of  a  place  that  it  would 
here  appear  to  be,  if  it  sets  a  vicious  example  in 
its  government,  in  its  business  practice,  and  in 
the  character  of  many  of  its  inhabitants,  the  fact 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  is  most  decidedly 
misrepresenting  out  there  the  sort  of  civilization 
that  we,  Europeans  as  well  as  Americans,  have 
always  supposed  that  we  stood  for.  It  would  ap- 
pear that  the  Chinese,  at  the  point  of  contact 
with  our  civilization,  are  getting  a  false  impres- 
sion of  us.  It  would  be  easy  to  dismiss  as  re- 
mote and  unimportant  the  vicious  example  set 
by  a  group  of  adventurers  and  promoters  on  the 
China  Coast ;  but  unfortunately  this  little  group  is 
the  most  important  single  contributing  factor  in 
the  exceedingly  delicate  matter  of  the  rapidly 
developing  relations  between  China  and  the  great 
Christian  nations. 

The  influence  of  the  Shanghai  example  on 
China  is  real  and  positive.  Geographically, 
Shanghai  commands  the  trade  of  the  middle 
coast,  the  immense  Yangtse  Valley,  and  the 
Grand  Canal.  Every  night  a  big  river  steamer 


no  Drugging  a  Nation 

leaves  for  Hankow  and  the  intermediate  river 
ports.  Every  day  a  big  river  steamer  conies  in 
from  the  same  cities.  Trading  junks  and  small 
steamers  innumerable  ply  between  the  river  and 
coast  ports  and  Shanghai.  Chinese  merchants 
come  from  hundreds  of  miles  around  to  trade 
with  the  foreigners  or  with  the  native  "  compra- 
dores  "  attached  to  foreign  houses.  On  their  re- 
turn to  their  various  interior  cities  or  villages 
these  traders  spread  tales  of  the  foreign  devils 
who  inhabit  the  great  city  near  the  sea.  Foreign 
merchants,  travelling  salesmen,  engineers,  and  in- 
surance agents  travel  up  and  down  the  great 
river,  up  and  down  the  coast ;  they  penetrate,  by 
steamer,  railroad,  mule-litter,  or  cart,  into  the  in- 
terior cities  of  the  great  provinces,  leaving  every- 
where on  plastic  minds  distinct  and  ineffaceable 
impressions  of  their  manners,  business  methods, 
and  morals. 

In  the  foreign  settlement  of  Shanghai,  and 
apart  from  the  population  of  the  native  city 
which  adjoins  it,  there  are,  roughly,  450,000 
Chinese  who  have  chosen  to  dwell  in  the  territory 
and  under  the  laws  of  the  white  men.  This 
population  is  not  fixed,  but  fluctuates  as  the 
floating  element  comes  and  goes ;  and  every- 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         in 

where  that  this  floating  element  travels  when  out 
of  the  city  it  leaves  an  impression — a  story,  a  bit 
of  gossip,  an  example  of  the  sharp  dealing 
learned  from  the  foreigner — of  the  manners,  busi- 
ness methods,  and  morals  of  Shanghai.  The 
native  newspapers  comment  frankly  on  life  and 
conditions  in  the  great  seaport,  and  their  com- 
ments are  reprinted  in  the  papers  of  the  interior. 
Shanghai  exerts  a  direct  and  result-breeding  in- 
fluence on  fifty  to  seventy-five  million  native 
minds,  and  an  indirect  influence  on  all  China. 
How  many  scores  of  fair-minded,  straightforward 
merchants,  how  many  thousands  of  scattered 
missionaries  and  teachers  will  it  take,  think  you, 
to  counteract  that  influence  ? 

China,  grappling  with  the  problem  of  decay, 
fighting  desperately  against  an  evil  which  the 
most  nearly  Christian  of  the  Christian  nations 
has  fastened  on  her,  looks  westward  for  enlight- 
enment, and  sees — Shanghai.  And  Shanghai — 
well  Shanghai  plays  the  races  and  the  roulette 
wheel,  and  drinks,  and  forgets  the  sacred 
significance  of  marriage  and  the  economic  im- 
portance of  the  home,  and  goes  to  the  club, 
and  except  in  casting  up  profits  gives  never 
a  thought  to  that  vast,  muttering  populace  that 


112  Drugging  a  Nation 

waits — waits — for  the  day  of  the  under-dog  to 
come. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  things  when  the 
Chinese  war  on  opium  began  to  assume  effective 
proportions  during  the  spring  of  1906.  Now, 
Shanghai — the  "settlement,"  that  is — was  in  a 
peculiar,  an  unfortunate,  condition  as  regarded 
the  anti-opium  crusade.  I  have  already  given, 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  the  estimate  of  Robert  E. 
Lewis,  general  secretary  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  at 
Shanghai,  that  there  were,  in  1906,  nearly  22,000 
places  in  the  international  settlement,  little  and 
big,  where  opium  could  be  purchased,  more  than 
19,000  of  which  kept  pipes,  lamps,  and  divans  on 
the  premises  for  smokers.  All  of  the  dens  which 
were  openly  conducted  were  paying  a  regular 
license  fee  to  the  municipal  government,  amount- 
ing last  year  to  98,000  Shanghai  taels,  or  about 
$70,000  in  gold.  It  is  against  the  law  to  permit 
women  or  children  to  enter  the  smoking-dens, 
and  a  clause  to  this  effect  is  printed  on  the  license 
as  a  condition  in  granting  it ;  yet  when  Captain 
Borisragon,  the  chief  of  police,  was  asked  how 
many  regular  women  inmates  were  in  the  dens, 
he  replied,  in  writing,  that  there  were  at  least 
3,200  women  so  kept,  and  doubtless  a  great 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         1 13 

many  more  who  did  not  appear  on  his  records. 
When  the  tax  and  license  department  was  asked 
why  this  clause  was  not  enforced,  the  reply  was 
made,  without  the  slightest  attempt  at  excuse  or 
explanation,  that  when  a  license  was  issued  to 
the  keeper  of  an  "  opium  brothel "  the  clause 
prohibiting  women  inmates  was  erased. 

These  curious  facts  combine  to  present  an  ap- 
pearance familiar  to  one  who  has  studied  the  mu- 
nicipal protection  of  vice  in  this  country.  It  is 
asking  too  much  of  human  credulity  to  expect 
one  to  believe  that  this  clause  was  regularly 
erased  for  nothing.  But  apart  from  what  individ- 
ual graft  there  may  have  been  in  it,  that  $70,000 
in  revenue  was  an  item  not  to  be  lightly  given 
up  by  the  hard-headed  municipal  council.  And 
the  amount  of  money  put  into  circulation  by  the 
patrons  of  these  dens  was  also  an  attractive  item, 
as  Shanghai  sees  things.  The  prevailing  opinion 
among  the  foreigners  of  "  the  settlement "  was 
simply  and  flatly  that  the  settlement  could  not 
afford  to  close  the  dens.  The  leading  English 
newspaper  hastened  to  defend  the  sordid  attitude 
of  the  council  by  explaining  that,  as  the  licenses 
were  issued  for  a  year,  they  had  no  right  to  close 
the  places,  at  least  before  the  spring  of  1908. 


114  Drugging  a  Nation 

The  interesting  and  significant  fact  is  that 
while  this  miserable  condition  of  affairs  was 
allowed  to  drag  along  in  the  international 
settlement,  where  the  white  men  rule,  the 
Chinese  native  city,  immediately  adjoining,  was 
strictly  enforcing  the  anti-opium  edicts.  The 
Chinese  authorities  went  about  the  enforcement 
in  a  thoroughly  effective  manner.  The  date  set 
for  the  closing  of  the  dens  was  May  22,  1907. 
There  was  some  fear  that  the  closing  down 
might  precipitate  a  riot,  and,  accordingly,  the 
authorities  took  measures  to  keep  the  populace 
in  hand.  Chinese  soldiers  were  placed  on  guard 
at  the  places  where  crowds  would  be  most  likely 
to  gather,  the  dens  were  quietly  closed,  pad- 
locked, and  the  shutters  put  up ;  and  red  signs, 
calling  attention  to  the  imperial  edict  prohibit- 
ing opium,  were  pasted  up  on  doors  or  shutters. 
It  was  quite  evident  that  the  proprietors  of  these 
dens  took  the  enforcement  most  seriously. 
Some  of  them  went  immediately  into  other  lines 
of  business ;  others  made  their  places  over  into 
tea-houses. 

So  at  Shanghai  the  Chinese  warfare  on  the 
"  foreign  smoke "  was  waged  earnestly  and 
effectively  in  the  native  city.  The  Chinese 


IN   AN    OPIUM    DEN,   SHANGHAI 


OPIUM   SMOKING 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         115 

authorities  closed  the  dens  —  permanently,  it 
seems  fair  to  believe.  And  the  only  result  of 
their  heroic  action, — and  it  is  an  heroic  action  to 
suppress  a  prosperous  and  thoroughly  established 
branch  of  commerce  in  any  city, — the  only  result 
was  that  the  opium  business  went  over  to  the  ad- 
joining city  of  the  foreigners,  who  gladly  ac- 
cepted it,  and  took  the  money  which  had 
formerly  been  spent  in  the  native  city.  The 
foreigners  live  wholly  outside  of  and  above 
Chinese  law.  They  have  their  own  strips  of 
land,  their  own  courts,  their  own  local  govern- 
ment, all  guaranteed  to  them  by  the  treaties 
which  China  has,  at  one  time  or  another,  been 
forced  to  sign.  When  the  Chinese  first  proposed 
to  stamp  out  opium,  these  foreigners  laughed, 
and  talked  about  the  chronic  insincerity  of  the 
Chinese  government.  When  the  yellow  men 
did  stamp  out  opium  in  that  native  city  a  mile 
or  so  away,  these  foreigners  said  that  it  would 
not  be  fair  to  the  holders  of  licenses  to  close 
down  in  the  settlement.  As  I  have  had  oc- 
casion to  say  before,  the  Chinese  are  not  fools. 
They  grasped  the  significance  of  the  situation, 
and  spoke  out  frankly.  The  local  mandarins 
protested  to  the  settlement  council.  The  native 


n6  Drugging  a  Nation 

newspapers  called  attention  to  it.  And  all  this 
clear  insight  into  an  extraordinary  situation  and 
the  frank  comment  on  it  were  communicated,  by 
the  routes  and  the  means  which  I  have  described 
earlier  in  this  chapter,  to  the  fifty  or  seventy-five 
million  Chinese  who  are  directly  influenced  by 
conditions  at  Shanghai.  Now,  in  the  light  of 
these  facts,  in  the  light  of  what  they  see  and 
know,  it  is  time  to  ask,  and  to  ask  with  feeling — 
How  can  you  hope  to  make  those  fifty  to  seventy- 
five  million  Chinamen  believe  that  our  civiliza- 
tion, with  its  science,  and  its  whisky,  and  its 
keen  grasp  on  "  revenue,"  and  its  contradictory 
and  confusing  teachings  of  Christianity,  is  su- 
perior to  their  civilization  ?  And  if  they  do  not 
believe  that  our  civilization  is  superior,  how  long 
do  you  suppose  they  will  endure  the  treatment 
they  receive  from  us  ?  As  time  rolls  on,  there 
will  be  more  "  Boxer "  uprisings  in  China,  more 
crazy  and  disastrous  protests  against  foreign  domi- 
nation and  exploitation.  When  these  troubles 
come,  it  will  be  well  to  recall  that  Shanghai, — 
not  the  individual  inhabitants,  but  the  govern- 
ment of  that  little  "  settlement "  of  foreigners 
which  lies  upon  the  west  bank  of  the  Woosung 
River, — officially  and  for  profit  maintained  its 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         117 

traffic  in  the  drug  that  is  China's  curse  after  the 
Chinese  had  stopped  their  own  opium  traffic.  It 
will  be  well  to  recall  it,  because  it  is  quite  certain 
that  the  Chinese  themselves  will  not  have  for- 
gotten it. 

I  have  gone  thus  at  length  into  the  deplorable 
example  which  Shanghai,  the  most  important 
foreign  settlement  in  China,  exhibits  to  the 
struggling,  opium-ridden  yellow  men,  because  it 
is  typical  of  the  whole  course  of  the  foreigner  in 
China.  In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  consider 
further  evidence  in  looking  into  the  condi- 
tions of  life  and  of  the  opium  problem  at  Hong- 
kong and  Tientsin.  It  is  of  course  peculiarly 
unfortunate  that  Shanghai,  when  the  great  op- 
portunity came  to  extend  a  helping  hand  to 
China  in  the  opium  fight,  should  have  failed, 
utterly,  ignominiously.  But  the  slightest  ac- 
quaintance with  the  place  is  enough  to  make  it 
plain  that  Shanghai,  as  it  has  been  and  still  is,  is 
not  likely  to  extend  a  helping  hand  to  anybody. 
The  helping  hand  is  not  exactly  what  Shanghai 
stands  for.  It  really  stands  for  the  domination 
of  the  great  Yangtse  Valley,  for  the  exploitation 
of  China,  and,  incidentally,  for  a  sort  of  snug 
harbour  for  criminals  and  degenerates.  There 


n8  Drugging  a  Nation 

can  be  no  doubt  that  the  fifty  to  seventy-five 
millions  of  Chinese  who  come  directly  within 
the  radiating  influence  of  Shanghai  know  this 
perfectly  well.  It  is  also  quite  likely  that  these 
and  the  few  hundred  other  millions  who  make 
up  "  the  Middle  Kingdom  "  know  perfectly  well, 
that  the  complicated  commercial  establishments 
of  all  the  various  foreign  nations  in  China  stand 
for  similar  principles.  And  they  doubtless  know 
further  that  the  very  important  and  very  cynical 
gentlemen  who  represent  the  great  and  prosper- 
ous foreign  powers  at  Peking,  are  there  for  no 
other  purpose  than  diplomatically  to  put  on  the 
pressure  whenever  China  chances  to  block  a 
move  or  gain  a  piece  in  this  sordid  and  unholy 
game  of  chess.  So  perhaps  we  had  better  give 
up,  once  and  for  all,  any  serious  consideration  of 
the  charges  made  by  certain  foreign  powers  that 
China  is  insincere  in  her  warfare  on  opium. 
Such  charges  and  insinuations,  coming  from 
such  sources,  hardly  command  respect. 

It  is  plain  that  this  greedy  exploitation,  going 
so  far  as  even  to  snatch  a  profit  out  of  the  opium 
struggle,  is  not  a  healthy  basis  of  intercourse  be- 
tween great  nations.  If  the  Chinese  were  a  Congo 
tribe,  or  a  race  of  American  Indians,  this  policy 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         119 

might  pay  commercially ;  for  in  that  case  it 
would  be  a  matter  for  the  Christian  nations  of 
simply  killing  off  the  Chinese  or  driving  them 
off  the  land,  and  then  of  righting  among  them- 
selves over  the  division  of  the  spoils.  But  this 
policy,  which  succeeds  against  weak  and  numeri- 
cally small  nations,  will  hardly  succeed  in  China. 
Driving  four  hundred  million  Chinese  off  the  land 
would  be  a  large  order,  a  very  different  thing,  in- 
deed, from  wiping  out  a  tribe  of  "  Fuzzy  Wuzzys  " 
with  machine  guns.  All  of  the  military  observ- 
ers with  whom  I  have  talked  in  China  show  a 
tendency  to  grow  thoughtful  over  the  subject  of 
China's  potential  military  strength.  From  the 
days  of  the  T'ai  Ping  Rebellion  and  "  Chinese  " 
Gordon's  "  ever  victorious  "  army,  down  to  the 
review  of  30,000  of  Yuan  Shi  K'ai's  troops,  with 
modern  weapons  and  modern  drill,  in  Honan 
Province  in  the  summer  of  1906,  it  has  been 
plain  that  the  Chinese  make  splendid  soldiers 
when  properly  led.  And  yet  it  seems  to  have 
occurred  to  few  white  statesmen  that  the  deepest 
interests  of  trade  itself,  sordid  trade,  demand  that 
China  be  treated  fairly  and  that  the  relations  be- 
tween China  and  the  powers  be  established  on 
a  basis  that  makes  for  mutual  respect  and  for 


12O  Drugging  a  Nation 

peace,  rather  than  on  a  basis  that  makes  for 
exploitation,  outrage,  massacre,  warfare,  "  in- 
demnity," and  smouldering  hate.  John  Hay 
saw  over  the  balance-sheet,  when  he  established 
the  "  open  door  "  policy.  Elihu  Root  has  seen 
over  the  balance-sheet  in  arranging  to  waive 
the  future  claims  of  this  country  for  indemnity 
money.  And  Lord  Elgin,  for  England,  saw 
over  the  balance-sheet  when  he  outlined  that 
sound  policy  which  he  was  afterwards  one  of  the 
first  to  violate — "  Never  to  make  an  unjust  de- 
mand of  China,  and  never  to  recede  from  a  de- 
mand once  made."  To-day  it  seems  apparent 
that  the  great  nations  cannot  be  brought  to- 
gether to  agree  on  any  really  enlightened  policy 
in  China.  Even  had  such  a  thing  been  possible 
a  few  years  ago,  the  untrustworthy  methods  of 
Russia  and  the  growing  ambitions  of  Japan 
would  make  it  impossible  to-day.  Nations 
which,  when  brought  together  in  a  "  Peace 
Conference,"  cannot  even  agree  upon  the  rules 
of  war,  will  hardly  forego  the  chance  of  seizing 
some  special  advantage  in  the  colossal  grab- bag 
which  is  China.  And  so  it  seems  likely  that  the 
genial  commercial  adventurers  and  gamblers  and 
vice  promoters  of  Shanghai  will  go  on  sowing 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         121 

the  wind  in  China — and  that  the  sullen  hate  of 
those  silent,  observing  millions  of  yellow  men 
will  deepen  and  smoulder  until  the  final  day  of 
reckoning,  the  day  of  reaping,  shall  come. 

There  is  one  ray  of  light  which,  to-day,  illumi- 
nates the  China  Coast.  It  is  a  small  ray,  when 
we  consider  the  number  of  dark  corners  to  be  il- 
luminated, and  yet  there  is  the  bare  possibility 
that  it  may  prove  the  beginning  of  better  condi- 
tions. Somewhat  less  than  two  years  ago  the 
United  States  government  established  a  wholly 
new  institution,  the  United  States  Court  for 
China.  L.  R.  Wilfley,  one  of  the  legal  officers 
whom  Judge  Taft  had  trained  in  Manila  during 
h,o  governorship  of  the  Philippines,  was  ap- 
pointed the  first  judge  of  this  court,  and  was 
sent  out,  with  a  district  attorney,  a  marshal,  and 
a  clerk,  to  administer  justice  to  Americans  up 
and  down  the  China  Coast  and  along  the  Yangtse 
River.  By  treaty,  all  American  citizens  are  ex- 
empt from  judgment  under  the  Chinese  law,  that 
peculiar  jumble  of  tradition,  superstition,  com- 
mon sense,  and  Oriental  severity.  Formerly,  jus- 
tice had  been  dealt  out  in  courts  presided  over 
by  the  consul-generals  and  the  consuls  in  their 
respective  districts. 


122  Drugging  a  Nation 

Now  it  should  be  obvious  to  the  most  casual 
observer  that  the  peculiar  conditions  and  the 
peculiar  industries  which  thrive  in  the  treaty 
ports  give  rise  to  a  considerable  number  of  legal 
entanglements.  There  is,  of  course,  a  large  vol- 
ume of  legitimate  business  transacted  on  the 
Coast,  which  gives  legitimate  employment  to  a 
few  lawyers;  but  there  is  a  volume  of  illegiti- 
mate and  semi-legitimate  business  which  would 
also  naturally  give  employment  to  other  lawyers. 
At  the  time  of  Judge  Wilfley's  appointment  one 
thing  was  clear  to  the  enlightened  heads  of  our 
Department  of  State  at  Washington;  the  con- 
sular courts,  thanks  to  the  skill  and  resource  of 
the  American  lawyer  on  the  Coast,  were  in  a 
constant  tangle  of  perplexed  inefficiency,  and  the 
American  name  was  sinking  steadily  lower  in 
China. 

It  is  likely  that  no  American  judge  ever  faced 
so  peculiar  and  difficult  a  task  as  that  assigned 
to  Judge  Wilfley.  It  was  his  duty  to  take  the 
place  of  a  lacking  public  opinion,  and  to  raise 
the  drooping  prestige  of  his  country.  He  had 
behind  him  no  settled  code  of  laws,  but  merely  a 
few  treaties  and  a  few  orders  from  the  Depart- 
ment of  State.  He  had  not  only  to  judge  cases 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         123 

between  Americans,  but  also  cases  between 
Americans  and  citizens  of  other  nationalities, 
including  the  Chinese  themselves.  He  had  to 
establish  rulings  on  the  most  complicated  mat- 
ters of  coastwise  commerce,  in  a  land  where 
coastwise  commerce  is  involved  with  perplexing 
local  customs  and  superstitions.  Above  all,  he 
had,  from  the  start,  to  fight  a  well-organized,  well- 
entrenched  band  of  shady  characters  who  had 
run  their  course  for  so  long  without  anything  in 
the  nature  of  a  public  opinion  to  hold  them  in 
check  that  they  resented  his  advent  as  an  en- 
croachment on  their  vested  right  to  do  as  they 
chose.  The  last  and  most  perplexing  of  his 
problems  was  that  in  rooting  out  these  evils  he 
was  in  danger  at  every  turn  of  arraying  against 
him  the  citizens  of  other  nationalities  and  even 
of  arousing  the  active  enmity  of  the  courts  and 
the  officials  of  other  nations,  most  of  whom  had 
been  content  to  let  Shanghai  jog  along  in  its 
easy-going,  sordid  way. 

It  is  to  Judge  Wilfley's  everlasting  credit  that, 
with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  difficulties  and  dan- 
gers before  him,  he  went  straight  to  the  heart  of 
the  problem.  Seeing  that  certain  American 
lawyers  had  long  stood  between  the  old  consular 


124  Drugging  a  Nation 

courts  and  anything  which  could  be  called  jus- 
tice, he  set  to  work  first  to  solve  the  problem  of 
the  lawyers.  His  campaign  for  a  higher  stand- 
ard on  the  Coast  has  not  been  without  its  humor- 
ous moments.  Mr.  Bassett,  his  shrewd  young 
district  attorney,  preceded  him  to  Shanghai  to 
"look  the  ground  over."  The  little  group  of 
American  lawyers  at  Shanghai  made  haste  to 
get  acquainted  with  him.  One  of  the  ablest 
among  them  invited  him,  casually  and  informally, 
to  dinner.  When  Bassett  arrived  at  the  dinner 
he  found  himself,  to  his  astonishment,  confronted 
with  thirty  or  forty  "  leading  citizens,"  including 
all  the  American  lawyers  and  several  men  of 
questionable  business  character  whom  he  rather 
expected  to  be  prosecuting  a  little  later  on. 

After  the  coffee  and  cigars,  the  host  rose,  and 
in  a  neat  little  speech  called  on  Bassett  to  tell 
the  company  something  about  Judge  Wilfley 
and  what  work  he  meant  to  do  in  Shanghai.  It 
was  a  difficult  situation.  A  slow-witted  man 
might  have  found  himself  in  a  fix.  But  Bassett, 
if  I  may  credit  the  account  which  reached  me, 
was  equal  to  the  situation.  He  rose,  and  looked 
around  the  table  from  face  to  face. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  as  I  have  come  un- 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         125 

prepared  for  this  pleasure,  I  shall  have  to  fall 
back  on  story-telling.  In  the  small  hours,  one 
morning,  two  men  who  had  been  having  rather 
too  good  a  time  were  navigating  from  street 
corner  to  street  corner.  Said  Smith, '  Jonesh, 
shtime  to  go  home.  Shgetting  broad  daylight. 
Theresh  sun  shining  up  there.' 

" '  No,  Shmith,'  replied  Jones,  '  you're  mis- 
taken. Tha'sh  moon  up  there,  and  it's  night.' 
They  staggered  down  the  street,  Smith  insisting 
that  it  was  day,  Jones  insisting  that  it  was  night, 
until  they  met  a  fellow  inebriate  clinging  to  a 
fire  plug.  To  him  they  appealed  their  dispute. 
He  heard  them  out,  and  then  looked  thought- 
fully up  at  the  moon.  For  a  long  time  he 
puzzled  over  the  problem,  and  finally,  giving  it 
up,  turned  to  them  and  said  politely, '  Gentlemen, 
you'll  have  to  'scuse  me.  I'm  a  stranger  in  town.' 

"  And,  gentlemen,"  said  Bassett,  again  looking 
about  from  face  to  face,  "  you'll  have  to  excuse 
me.  I'm  a  stranger  in  town." 

Judge  Wilfley  began  by  calling  upon  every 
American  lawyer  who  was  practicing  in  Shanghai 
to  bring  a  certificate  of  good  moral  character  and 
to  pass  an  examination  before  he  could  be  ad- 
jnitted  to  practice  in  the  new  court.  The  ex- 


126  Drugging  a  Nation 

amination  was  given,  and  only  two  of  the  lawyers 
passed.  At  once  there  was  a  hubbub.  The 
judge  was  attacked  hotly.  One  of  the  lawyers 
who  failed  to  pass  hurried  over  to  this  country, 
making  a  speech  at  Honolulu,  on  the  way,  in 
which  he  insinuated  charges  of  corruption  against 
Judge  Wilfley.  Shortly  after  his  arrival  at  San 
Francisco,  he  prevailed  upon  the  Ninth  Circuit 
Court  of  Appeals,  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  to  reverse 
one  of  Judge  Wilfley's  decisions  without  having 
the  facts  of  the  whole  case  in  hand  and  without 
a  hearing  from  the  China  court.  He  went  on  to 
Washington,  and  within  a  month  or  two  last 
winter  actually  got  a  bill  through  the  United 
States  Senate  reinstating  all  the  disqualified 
lawyers.  The  bill  is  before  the  House  at  this 
present  session.  He  has  conducted  a  newspaper 
campaign  against  Judge  Wilfley  in  this  country 
since  his  return  last  year.  It  seems  only  fair  to 
call  attention  to  these  facts  on  a  fearless  and  able 
man,  because  Judge  Wilfley  is  too  hard  at  work 
in  a  distant  country  to  be  able  to  defend  himself. 
In  the  course  of  my  travels  from  port  to  port 
last  year,  it  became  clear  to  me  that  this  new 
court  was  the  one  uplifting  factor  in  a  distressing 
general  condition. 


Sowing  the  Wind  in  China         127 

Judge  Wilfley,  like  his  district  attorney,  seems 
to  hold  no  visionary  theories,  in  spite  of  the 
high  standard  he  has  set.  Before  leaving  China, 
I  made  it  a  point  to  call  on  him  and  talk  with 
him  about  the  work  he  is  doing  in  the  interest 
of  the  American  name.  He  seemed  to  recognize 
clearly  enough  that  vice  and  depravity  can  no 
more  be  put  down  out  of  hand  in  Shanghai  than 
they  can  be  put  down  out  of  hand  in  New  York 
or  Chicago  or  Boston.  But  he  maintained  that 
the  disreputably  open  flaunting  of  vice  can  be 
stopped.  In  fining  the  "  American  girls  "  $500 
(gold)  each,  and  driving  a  number  of  them  off 
the  Coast,  his  attack  has  been  directed  mainly 
against  the  dishonourable  use  of  an  honourable 
phrase.  In  imprisoning  or  driving  away  the 
American  gamblers,  he  has  been  trying  to  put 
gambling  down  more  nearly  to  the  place  it  oc- 
cupies, in  this  country,  as  a  minor  rather  than  as 
a  major  branch  of  industry.  Judge  Wilfley  has 
undertaken  an  Herculean  task.  It  seems  to  be 
the  hope  of  all  that  patient  minority,  the  better 
class  of  Americans  on  the  China  Coast,  that  he 
will  be  permitted  to  continue  his  fight  un- 
hampered by  political  machinery  "  back  home." 

There  are  two  other  points,  besides  Shanghai, 


128  Drugging  a  Nation 

at  which  the  two  kinds  of  civilization,  Western 
and  Eastern,  come  into  contact — Hongkong  and 
Tientsin.  Each  is  different  from  the  other  as 
well  as  from  Shanghai ;  and  each  plays  a  curious 
part  in  the  opium  drama.  We  shall  take  them 
up  in  the  next  chapter. 


VI 

SOWING  THE  WIND  IN  CHINA— TIENTSIN 
AND  HONGKONG 

IF  you  could  avoid  the  suburbs  of  mud  huts 
and  walled  compounds,  and  step  directly 
down  from  an  airship  on  the  broad  piazza 
of  the  Astor  House  at  Tientsin  (no  treaty  port  is 
complete  without  its  Astor  House),  you  might 
also  imagine  yourself  in  a  thriving  English  town. 
Set  about  this  piazza  are  round  tables,  in  bowers 
of  potted  plants,  where  sit  Britishers,  Germans, 
and  Americans,  with  a  gay  sprinkling  of  soldiery. 
Across  the  street  there  is  a  green  little  park, 
where  plump  British  babies  are  wheeled  about 
and  children  romp  among  the  shrubbery,  and 
where  the  Sikh  band  plays  on  Sundays.  There 
is  nothing,  unless  it  be  the  group  of  rickshaw 
coolies  at  the  curb,  or  the  fat  Chinese  policeman 
in  the  roadway,  to  recall  China  to  the  mind. 

Yet   Tientsin  dominates  all   Northern  China 

much  as  Shanghai  dominates  the  mighty  valley 

of  the  Yangtse.     The  railways  and  waterways 

(including  the  Grand  Canal)  all  lead  to  Tientsin. 

129 


130  Drugging  a  Nation 

It  is  Peking's  seaport.  The  viceroy  of  the 
Northern  Provinces  makes  it  his  seat  of  govern- 
ment. The  chief  point  of  contact  between  these 
Northern  Provinces  and  Western  civilization,  it  is 
through  Tientsin  that  the  new  ideas  which  are 
stirring  the  sluggish  Chinese  mind  to  new  desires 
and  to  a  new  purpose  filter  into  one  hundred 
million  Mongoloid  heads. 

The  foreign  settlement  is  simply  a  polyglot 
cluster  of  nationalities,  each  with  its  "  concession  " 
or  allotment  of  land  wrung  from  a  browbeaten 
empire,  each  with  its  separate  municipal  govern- 
ment ruled  by  its  own  consul-general,  and  the 
whole  combined,  for  purposes  of  defense  and  ag- 
gression, into  a  loosely  knit  city  of  seven  or 
eight  thousand  whites  under  the  general  direc- 
tion of  a  dozen  consulates.  The  British  have 
their  polo,  golf,  and  racing  grounds  ;  the  French 
have  their  wealthy  church  orders  and  their  Paris- 
ian moving  pictures  ;  the  Germans  have  their 
beer  halls  and  delicatessen  shops.  The  Japanese, 
the  Russians,  the  Italians,  the  Austrians,  all  the 
powers,  in  fact,  excepting  the  United  States — 
which  holds  no  land  in  China — contribute  their 
lesser  shares  to  the  colour  and  the  activity  of  this 
extraordinary  place.  And  only  a  mile  or  two  away, 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  131 

further  up  the  crooked  river,  lies  the  huge,  sprawl- 
ing Chinese  city,  where  nine  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  blue-clad  celestials — nearly  a  round 
million  of  them — ceaselessly  watch  the  squabbling 
groups  of  foreigners,  and  by  means  of  newspa- 
pers, travelling  merchants,  and  the  thousand  and 
one  other  instruments  for  the  spreading  of  gos- 
sip, tell  all  Northern  China  what  they  see. 

Tientsin,  then,  like  Shanghai,  is  a  potent,  an 
electric,  force  in  its  influence  on  China.  What- 
ever the  Chinese  are  to  become  in  their  struggle 
towards  the  light  of  day  will  be  in  some  measure 
due  to  the  example  set  by  these  two  cities,  the 
only  samples  of  Western  civilization  which  the 
Chinaman  can  scrutinize  at  close  range.  The 
missionary  tells  him  of  the  God  of  the  Western 
peoples,  and  of  how  His  Spirit  regenerates  human- 
kind; the  Chinaman  listens  stolidly,  and  then 
turns  to  look  at  the  samples  of  regenerated 
peoples  that  fringe  his  Coast.  What  he  actually 
sees  will  stick  in  his  mind  long  after  what  he 
merely  hears  shall  have  passed  out  at  the  other 
ear.  And  these  impressions  that  stick  in  the 
Chinaman's  mind  are  precisely  the  highly  charged 
forces  that  are  revolutionizing  China  to-day. 

While  still  at  Peking,  I  had  picked  up  more  or 


132  Drugging  a  Nation 

less  gossip  which  seemed  to  indicate  that  the 
Tientsin  foreign  concessions  were  setting  an  un- 
fortunate example  in  the  matter  of  opium.  In 
several  of  the  concessions  there  are  thousands  of 
Chinese  traders  who  have  crowded  in  the  white 
man's  territory,  in  order  to  make  a  living.  These 
Chinese  districts  demand  their  opium,  and  they 
have  always  been  allowed  to  have  it.  The  opium 
shops  and  dens  are  licensed,  as  are  our  saloons, 
and  the  resulting  revenue  is  cheerfully  accepted 
by  the  various  municipalities.  When  the  Chinese 
officials  set  out  to  fight  opium  last  winter  and 
spring,  they  asked  the  foreign  consuls  to  cooper- 
ate with  them.  This  could  be  no  more  than  a 
friendly  request,  for  the  concessions  are  foreign 
soil,  that  have  passed  wholly  out  of  China's  con- 
trol ;  but  it  was  obviously  of  no  use  to  close  the 
dens  of  the  native  city  if  smokers  could  continue 
to  gratify  their  desire  by  simply  walking  down 
the  road. 

This  request  bothered  the  consuls.  The  Chinese 
had  adroitly  placed  them  in  a  difficult  position. 
A  failure  to  cooperate  would  look  bad ;  but 
revenue  is  revenue,  on  the  Chinese  Coast  as 
elsewhere.  More,  if  they  could  play  for  time, 
the  enforcement  in  the  native  city,  by  driving 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  133 

the  smokers  over  into  the  concessions,  would 
actually  increase  the  revenue.  So  the  consuls 
played  for  time.  They  spread  the  impression 
"  back  home  "  that  they  were  going  to  close  the 
dens.  When  ?  Oh,  soon — very  soon.  There 
were  matters  of  detail  to  attend  to.  The  licenses 
must  run  out.  Then,  too,  perhaps  the  Chinese 
proposals  were  "  insincere  " — a  little  time  would 
show. 

The  British  concession  boasted  proudly  that  it 
had  no  opium  dens.  This  was  true.  The  con- 
cession is  wholly  taken  up  with  British  shops 
and  British  homes,  and  there  is  no  room  for  Chi- 
nese residents.  The  German  concession  had  so 
few  natives  that  it  closed  some  of  its  dens  and 
took  what  credit  it  could.  The  Japanese  quietly 
put  on  the  lid.  But  all  the  other  concessions  re- 
mained "  wide  open." 

So  ran  the  Peking  gossip.  It  seemed  to  me 
worth  while  to  follow  it  up  ;  for  if  it  should  prove 
true  that  the  concessions  were  actually  profiting, 
like  Shanghai,  by  the  native  prohibition,  that  fact 
would  be  significant.  It  would  leave  little  to  say 
for  the  representatives  of  foreign  civilization  in 
China. 

There  was  a  particular  reason  why  the  pro- 


134  Drugging  a  Nation 

hibition  should  be  made  effective  in  and  about 
Tientsin.  The  one  official  who  stood  before  his 
country  and  the  world  as  the  anti-opium  leader, 
who  personified,  in  fact,  the  reform  spirit  which 
is  leavening  the  Chinese  mass,  was  Yuan  Shi 
K'ai,  the  Northern  viceroy.  Tientsin  was  his 
viceregal  capital.  Before  he  could  hope  to  con- 
vince the  cynical  observers  of  Britain  and  Europe 
that  the  anti-opium  crusade  was  really  on,  he  had 
to  make  good  in  his  own  city. 

Yuan  Shi  K'ai  is  a  remarkable  man.  Unlike 
some  of  his  colleagues  who  have  travelled  and 
studied  abroad,  he  has  never,  I  believe,  been  over 
the  sea ;  yet  no  Chinese  official  shows  a  firmer 
grasp  on  his  biggest  and  most  bewildering  of  the 
world's  governmental  problems.  Practically  a 
self-made  man  (his  father  was  a  soldier),  he 
worked  up  from  rank  to  rank,  himself  a  part  and 
a  product  of  the  antiquated  absolutism  of  his 
country,  until  he  emerged  at  the  top,  a  red-but- 
ton mandarin,  a  viceroy,  with  a  personality  tow- 
ering above  the  superstitious,  tradition-ridden 
court,  and  yet  sufficiently  able  and  skillful  to 
work  with  and  through  that  court.  We  have 
seen,  in  an  earlier  chapter,  how  Yuan,  then  a  gov- 
ernor, kept  Shantung  Province  quiet  during  the 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  135 

Boxer  outbreak.  It  is  he  who  is  building  up  the 
"  new  army  "  with  the  aid  of  German  and  Japa- 
nese drill- masters.  It  is  he  who  succeeded  in  in- 
troducing the  study  of  modern  science  into  the 
education  of  the  official  classes.  He  is  committed 
to  the  abolition  of  the  palace  eunuch  system. 
He  has,  during  the  past  year,  made  great 
headway  with  his  bold  plan  to  remodel  this  land 
of  fossilized  ideas  into  a  constitutional  monarchy, 
with  a  representative  parliament.  But  first,  and 
above  all  else,  he  places  the  opium  reforms.  Un- 
less this  curse  can  be  checked,  and  at  least  par- 
tially removed,  there  is  no  hope  of  progress. 

Throughout  this  magnificent  struggle  for  a 
new  China,  Viceroy  Yuan  has  radically  opposed 
the  very  spirit  and  genius  of  his  race ;  but  far 
from  ostracizing  himself  or  splitting  the  govern- 
ment, he  has  grown  steadily  in  power  and  in- 
fluence, until  now,  as  a  sort  of  prime  minister,  he 
appears  to  hold  the  substance  of  imperial  author- 
ity in  his  hands.  Try  to  imagine  a  self-made, 
reform  politician  outwitting  and  beating  down 
the  traditions  of  Tammany  Hall  in  New  York 
City,  multiply  his  difficulties  by  a  thousand  or 
two,  and  you  will  perhaps  have  some  notion  of 
the  sheer  ability  of  this  great  man,  who  has  risen 


136  Drugging  a  Nation. 

above  the  traditions,  even  above  the  age-old 
prejudices  of  his  own  people.  There  are  many 
Europeans  in  his  retinue — physicians,  military 
men,  engineers,  educators — all  of  whom  appar- 
ently look  up  to  him  as  a  genuine  superior.  An 
attache  summed  up  for  me  this  feeling  which 
Yuan  inspires  in  those  who  know  him :  "  You 
forget  to  think  of  him  as  a  Chinaman,"  said  this 
attache^  "  as  in  any  way  different  from  the  rest 
of  us." 

The  viceroy  took  a  personal  hand  in  the 
Tientsin  situation.  On  December  2,  1906,  he 
issues  the  following  document  to  the  North  and 
South  Police  Commissioners  of  Tientsin  native 
city.  Rather  than  altar  the  quaint  wording,  I 
quote  just  as  it  was  translated  for  me  : 

"  I  have  just  received  instructions  from  the 
cabinet  ministers  enjoining  me  to  act  according 
to  the  regulations  which  they  presented  to  the 
throne,  and  which  received  their  Majesties'  con- 
sent. The  evil  effects  of  opium  are  known  to 
all.  It  is  the  duty  of  us  all  to  act  according  to 
the  regulations,  and  do  our  utmost  to  get  rid  of 
them. 

"  The  North  and  South  police  commissioners 
are  authorized  to  close  the  opium  dens,  which 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  137 

have  been  the  refuge  of  idle  hands  and  young 
people  who  are  not  allowed  to  smoke  at  home. 
The  said  dens  are  to  be  closed  at  the  end  of  the 
Tenth  Moon  (December  1 4th),  at  the  same  time 
notifying  the  keepers  of  restaurants  and  wine 
shops  not  to  have  opium-smoking  instruments  or 
opium  prepared  for  their  customers,  nor  are  their 
customers  allowed  to  take  opium  and  smoke  there. 

"  As  to  the  concessions,  the  Customs  Taotai 
is  authorized  to  open  conference  with  the  differ- 
ent consuls,  asking  them  to  close  the  opium  dens 
within  a  limited  time." 

The  two  police  commissioners  at  once  made 
the  proclamation  public ;  and,  as  is  evident  from 
the  following  "  Reply  to  a  petition,"  met  with 
difficulties  in  enforcing  it : 

"  It  is  impossible  to  change  the  date  of  closing 
dens.  What  is  said  in  the  petition,  that  the 
keepers  cannot  square  their  accounts  with  their 
customers,  may  be  true,  but  the  viceroy's  order 
must  be  obeyed.  The  dens  shall  be  closed  at 
the  specified  time." 

These  orders  were  carried  out.  It  is  one  of 
the  advantages  of  a  patriarchal  form  of  govern- 
ment that  orders  can  be  carried  out.  There 
were  no  injunctions,  no  writs  to  show  cause,  no 


138  Drugging  a  Nation 

technical  appeals.  The  few  den  keepers  who 
dared  to  violate  the  prohibition  were  mildly  pun- 
ished on  the  first  offense — most  of  them  receiv- 
ing two  full  weeks  at  hard  labour.  The  real  re- 
sponsibility was  placed  upon  the  owners  of  the 
property  rented  out  to  the  den  keepers.  It  was 
recognized  that  these  owners  were  the  ones  who 
really  profited  by  the  vice.  They  were  given  an 
opportunity  to  report  any  violations  occurring 
on  their  property;  but  if  a  violation  occurred, 
and  the  owner  failed  to  report,  his  property  was 
promptly  confiscated.  Here  we  see  successfully 
employed  a  method  which  we  in  this  country 
have  been  unable  as  yet  to  put  into  effect.  The 
futility  of  punishing  engineers  and  switchmen  for 
the  sins  of  railroad  corporations,  of  punishing 
clerks  for  the  offenses  of  bank  directors,  of  pun- 
ishing keepers  of  disorderly  houses  in  cases 
where  we  know  that  the  real  profit  goes,  in  the 
form  of  a  high  rental,  to  the  respectable  owner 
of  the  property,  has  long  been  recognized  among 
us.  In  China,  while  we  see  much  that  seems  in- 
tolerable in  the  enforcement  of  law,  we  must 
admit  that  it  is  refreshing  to  find  laws  really  en- 
forced, and  to  see  responsibility  sometimes  put 
where  it  belongs.  We  of  the  United  States  are 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  139 

far  ahead  of  the  Chinese  in  all  that  goes  to  make 
up  what  we  call  civilization.  But  we  have, 
among  others,  a  law  forbidding  the  sale  of  liquor 
on  Sundays  in  New  York  City.  We  couldn't 
enforce  the  law  if  we  tried;  and  we  haven't 
enough  moral  courage  to  strike  it  off  the  books 
for  the  dead  letter  it  is. 

Yes,  the  Tientsin  situation  has  its  refreshing 
side.  Yuan  Shi  K'ai — a  Chinaman, — set  about 
it  to  close  the  opium  dens  that  supplied  this 
swarming  cityful  of  Chinamen,  and  succeeded. 
He  solved  that  most  difficult  problem  which 
confronts  human  governments  everywhere — in 
every  climate,  under  every  sky — the  problem  of 
moral  regulation.  He  drove  the  manufacturers 
of  opium  and  of  opium  accessories  out  of  busi- 
ness. He  cut  his  way  through  a  tangle  of  "  in- 
terests," vested  and  otherwise,  not  so  different  in 
their  essence  from  the  liquor  interests  of  this 
country.  Thanks  to  his  own  character  and  re- 
source, thanks  to  the  cheerful  directness  of  Chi- 
nese methods  of  governing  (when  directness  and 
not  indirectness  is  really  wanted),  he  "  got  re- 
sults." And  not  only  in  Tientsin  native  city, 
but  also  in  Peking,  and  Pao-ting-fu,  and  all  Chili 
Province,  and  throughout  Shansi  Province,  and 


140  Drugging  a  Nation 

over  large  portions  of  Shantung,  Shansi,  and 
Manchuria.  It  was  not  a  case  of  Maine  prohi- 
bition, or  Kansas  prohibition,  or  New  York  ex- 
cise regulation.  He  closed  the  dens  ! 

While  he  was  accomplishing  this  result,  and 
while  the  native  Chamber  of  Commerce  was  ap- 
propriating a  sum  of  money  to  found  a  hospital 
for  the  cure  of  opium  victims,  the  "  Customs 
Taotai,"  obeying  the  viceroy's  instructions,  cour- 
teously requested  the  consuls,  as  rulers  of  the 
foreign  city,  to  help  along  by  closing  the  dens  in 
their  municipalities.  It  was  mainly  to  see 
whether  or  not  the  consuls  were  "  helping  "  that 
I  went  down  to  Tientsin.  There  was  no  need  to 
ask  questions  or  to  burrow  among  statistics. 
The  opium  dens  of  the  concessions  were  either 
or  they  were  not.  Accordingly,  I  set  out  from 
the  Astor  House  at  nine  o'clock  one  evening,  by 
rickshaw.  For  interpreter  I  had  Mr.  Sung,  the 
secretary  of  the  Native  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  and  with  us  went  a  young  English- 
man who  spoke  the  language.  This  test  seemed 
a  fair  one  to  apply,  for  it  was  April  23d,  nearly 
five  months  after  Viceroy  Yuan's  proclamation, 
and  several  weeks  after  the  closing  of  the  last 
dens  in  the  native  city. 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  141 

We  began  with  the  French  concession ;  and 
our  first  glimpses  of  the  thriving  opium  business 
of  the  little  municipality  astonished  us.  The 
Taiku  Road,  the  main  street,  where  one  finds 
churches,  mission  compounds,  offices,  and  shops, 
displayed  a  row  of  red  lights.  Our  three  rick- 
shaws pulled  up  at  the  first  and  we  went  in. 

An  opium  den  usually  takes  up  one  floor  of  a 
building.  Against  the  walls  is  a  continuous 
wooden  platform,  perhaps  two  feet  high  and  ex- 
tending over  seven  or  eight  feet  into  the  room. 
This  platform  is  divided  at  intervals  of  five  or  six 
feet  by  low  partitions,  sometimes  but  a  few 
inches  in  height,  into  compartments,  each  of 
which  accommodates  two  smokers,  with  one 
lamp  between  them.  Sometimes  a  rug  or  a  bit 
of  matting  is  laid  on  this  hard  couch,  sometimes 
not ;  for  the  Chinaman,  accustomed  to  sleeping 
on  bricks,  prefers  his  couches  hard.  A  man 
always  lies  down  to  smoke  opium ;  for  the  porous 
pill,  which  is  pressed  into  the  tiny  orifice  of  the 
pipe,  cannot  be  ignited,  but  is  held  directly  over 
the  lamp  and  the  flame  drawn  up  through  it. 

The  first  den  we  entered  was  on  the  second 
floor  of  a  rickety  building.  We  climbed  the  steep, 
infinitely  dirty  stairway,  crossed  a  narrow  hall, 


142  Drugging  a  Nation 

and  opened  a  door.  At  first  I  found  it  difficult 
to  see  distinctly  in  the  dim  light  and  through  the 
thick  blue  haze ;  and  the  overpowering,  sickish 
fumes  of  the  drug  got  into  my  nose  and  throat 
and  made  breathing  a  noticeable  effort.  There 
was  a  desk  by  the  door,  behind  which  sat  the 
keeper  of  the  den,  with  a  litter  of  pipes  and 
thimble-like  cups  before  him.  In  a  corner  of  the 
desk  was  a  jar  of  opium,  a  thick,  sticky  sub- 
stance, dark  brown  in  colour,  in  appearance  not 
unlike  molasses  in  January.  There  were  twenty 
smokers  on  the  couches,  some  preparing  the 
pellet  of  opium  by  kneading  it  and  pressing  it 
on  the  pipe-bowl,  some  dozing  off  the  fumes,  and 
a  few  smoking.  An  attendant  moved  about  the 
room  with  fresh  supplies  of  the  drug.  For  each 
thimbleful,  enough  for  one  or  two  smokes,  the 
price  was  fifteen  cents  (Mexican). 

The  smokers  seemed  to  be  mainly  of  the 
lower  classes  ;  though  hardly  so  low  as  coolies, 
who  are  lucky  to  earn  as  much  as  fifteen  cents  in 
a  day.  It  was  evident  to  both  of  my  compan- 
ions, from  the  appearance  of  these  men  and  from 
their  talk,  that  they  could  ill  afford  the  luxury. 
The  number  of  smokes  indulged  in  seemed  to 
range  from  three  or  four  up  to  an  indefinite 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  143 

number.  The  youngest  and  healthiest  appearing 
man  in  the  room  told  us  that  after  three  pipes  he 
could  go  home  and  go  to  sleep  in  comfort.  He 
had  been  at  it  less  than  a  year,  he  said ;  and, 
judging  from  the  expression  of  peaceful  content 
that  came  over  his  face  as  he  held  the  pipe-bowl 
over  the  lamp  and  drew  the  smoke  deep  into  his 
lungs,  he  had  not  yet  begun  to  feel  the  ravages 
of  the  drug. 

The  next  den  we  entered  was  small,  crowded, 
and  dirty.  The  price  was  only  ten  cents.  But 
the  third  den  was  the  largest  and  decidedly  the 
most  interesting  of  any  that  we  saw.  Like  the 
others,  it  was  situated  in  a  prosperous  section  of 
the  Taiku  Road,  with  its  red  light  conspicuously 
displayed  over  the  door.  From  the  facts  that  it 
was  frankly  open  for  business  and  that  not  the 
slightest  concern  was  shown  at  our  entrance,  it 
seemed  fair  to  believe  that  the  keepers  had  no 
fear  whatever  of  publicity  or  of  the  law.  Even 
when  we  announced  ourselves  to  be  investiga- 
tors, our  questions  were  answered  cheerfully  and 
fully,  and  the  man  who  escorted  us  from  room  to 
room  was  apparently  proud  of  the  establishment. 
The  couches  were  not  all  occupied,  but  I  counted 
thirty-five  men  sitting  or  reclining  on  them. 


144  Drugging  a  Nation 

One  man  had  a  child  with  him,  a  girl  of  some  six 
or  eight  years  of  age,  and  when  he  had  prepared 
his  pipe  and  smoked  it  he  permitted  her  to  take 
a  whiff  or  two.  In  a  rear  room  we  saw  four 
women  smoking  with  the  men.  The  price  of  a 
smoke  in  this  den  was  twenty-five  cents. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  opium  dens  were 
open  for  business  in  the  French  concession  on 
this  particular  April  23d,  1907,  but  of  those  that 
were  open  I  personally  either  entered  or  at  least 
saw  fifteen  or  sixteen,  and  that  without  attempt- 
ing anything  in  the  nature  of  an  exhaustive 
search.  In  the  Italian  and  Russian  concessions 
I  found  about  sixty  dens  open,  mostly  of  a  very 
low  grade.  But  the  worst  of  the  concessions,  in 
this  regard,  was  the  Austrian.  Lying  nearest  to 
the  native  city,  it  had  profited  more  largely  than 
any  of  the  others  by  the  native  prohibition.  It 
seemed  also  to  have  the  largest  Chinese  popu- 
lation ;  indeed,  in  appearance  it  was  more  like 
the  quaint  old  Chinese  city  than  any  of  the  other 
foreign  municipalities. 

We  entered  only  three  of  the  Austrian  dens. 
But  we  saw  the  signs  and  glanced  in  through  the 
doorways  of  so  many  others  that  I  was  quite 
ready  to  accept  Mr.  Sung's  rough  estimate  of  the 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  145 

total  number  within  the  narrow  confines  of  the 
concession  :  he  put  it  at  fifty  to  one  hundred.  It 
is  difficult  to  be  exact  in  these  estimates,  because 
where  laws  are  so  languidly  enforced  the  official 
returns  hardly  begin  to  state  the  full  number  of 
flourishing  establishments.  These  three  dens 
which  we  entered  were  enough  to  make  an  in- 
effaceable impression  on  the  mind  of  one  trav- 
eller. I  have  eaten  and  slept  in  native  hostelries, 
in  the  interior,  so  unspeakably  dirty  and  insani- 
tary that  to  describe  them  in  these  pages  would 
exceed  all  bounds  of  taste,  but  I  have  never  been 
in  a  filthier  place  than  at  least  one  of  these  Aus- 
trian dens.  And  the  other  two  were  little  better. 
It  would  require  some  means  more  adequate  than 
pen,  ink,  and  paper,  to  convey  to  the  reader  an 
accurate  notion  of  the  mingled,  half-blended 
odours  which  seemed  to  underlie,  or  to  form  a 
background  for,  the  overpowering  fumes  of  what 
passed  here  for  opium.  What  this  drug  com- 
pound was  I  really  do  not  know ;  but  it  was  sold 
at  the  rate  of  two  pipes  for  three  cents,  Mexican, 
equivalent  to  a  cent  and  a  half,  gold.  For  real 
opium,  of  fair  or  good  quality,  it  is  quite  possible, 
in  China,  to  pay  from  ten  to  twenty  times  as 
much.  Such  dens  as  this,  then,  are  not  only 


146  Drugging  a  Nation 

vicious  resorts  maintained  for  the  purpose  of 
catering  to  a  degrading  habit ;  they  are  also 
breeding  places  of  disease  and  pestilence. 

Thus  one  night's  work  made  it  plain  that  the 
foreign  concessions  were  taking  no  steps  that 
would  evidence  a  spirit  of  cooperation  with  the 
Chinese  authorities  in  their  vigorous  attempt 
to  check  and  control  the  ravages  of  opium. 
Tientsin,  like  Shanghai,  did  not  care.  Tientsin, 
like  Shanghai,  is  sowing  the  wind  in  China. 

Let  us  now  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  con- 
sider the  third  important  point  of  contact  between 
the  two  kinds  of  civilization — Hongkong. 

Hongkong  is  neither  a  "settlement"  nor  a 
"  concession."  It  is  a  British  crown  colony,  with 
its  own  government  and  its  own  courts.  The 
original  property,  a  mountainous  island  lying 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Canton  River,  was  taken 
from  the  Chinese  in  1842,  as  a  part  of  the  penalty 
which  China  had  to  pay  for  losing  the  Opium 
War.  Later,  a  strip  of  the  mainland  opposite  was 
added  to  the  colony.  Hongkong  is  one  of  the 
most  important  seaports  in  the  world.  It  is  the 
meeting  place  for  freight  and  passenger  ships 
from  North  America,  South  America,  New 
Zealand  and  Australia,  India,  Europe,  Africa, 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  147 

and  the  Philippines  and  other  Pacific  islands.  It 
commands  the  trade  of  the  Canton  River  Valley, 
which,  though  not  geographically  so  imposing  as 
the  wonderful  valley  of  the  Yangtse,  supports, 
nevertheless,  the  densely  populated  region  reached 
by  the  innumerable  canal-like  branches  of  the 
river.  The  city  of  Canton  alone,  eighty  or  ninety 
miles  inland  from  Hongkong,  claims  2,500,000 
inhabitants.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  fifty  million 
Chinamen  are  constantly  under  the  influence  of 
the  civilizing  example  set  by  Hongkong. 

What  is  the  attitude  of  the  Colonial  government 
towards  the  opium  question?  Simply  that  the 
opium  habit  is  a  legitimate  source  of  revenue. 
The  British  gentlemen  who  administer  the  gov- 
ernment seem  never  to  have  been  disturbed  by 
doubts  as  to  the  morality  or  humanity  of  their 
attitude.  Let  me  quote  from  the  report  of  the 
Philippine  Commission : 

"  Farming  is  the  system  adopted  (renting  out 
the  monopoly  control  of  the  drug  to  an  individual 
or  a  corporation)  and  a  considerable  part  of 
the  income  of  the  colony  is  obtained  from  this 
source.  The  habit  seems  to  be  spreading.  No 
effort — except  the  increased  price  demanded  by 
the  farmer  to  compensate  for  the  increased  price 


148  Drugging  a  Nation 

he  has  to  pay  to  secure  the  monopoly — is  made 
to  deter  persons  from  using  opium  in  the  colony. 
Most  of  the  opium  comes  from  India." 

The  attitude  of  the  residents  and  merchants  of 
the  colony  seems  to  be  expressed  plainly  enough 
by  an  editorial  in  a  leading  Hongkong  paper 
which  lies  before  me,  dated  December  I,  1906: 
"  It  will  take  volumes  of  imperial  edicts  to  con- 
vince us  that  China  ever  honestly  intends  or  is 
ever  likely  to  suppress  the  opium  trade.  It  is  up 
to  China  to  take  the  initiative  in  such  a  way  as  to 
leave  no  doubt  that  her  intentions  are  honest  and 
that  the  native  opium  trade  will  be  abandoned. 
Until  that  is  done,  it  is  idle  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion." 

In  other  words,  Hongkong  refuses  to  consider 
giving  up  its  opium  revenue  until  the  Chinese 
take  the  market  away  from  it. 

I  think  we  may  consider  the  point  established 
that  Great  Britain  is  directly  responsible  for  the 
introduction  of  opium  into  China,  and,  through 
the  ingenuity  and  persistence  of  her  merchants 
and  her  diplomats,  for  the  growth  of  the  habit 
in  that  country.  To-day,  in  spite  of  an  un- 
mistakable tendency  on  the  part  of  the  Home 
government  (which  we  shall  consider  in  a  later 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  149 

chapter)  to  yield  to  the  pressure  of  the  anti-opium 
agitation  in  England,  the  government  of  India 
continues  to  grow  and  manufacture  vast  quanti- 
ties of  the  drug  for  the  Chinese  trade.  To-day 
the  representatives  of  that  government  at  Hong- 
kong are  profiting  largely  from  a  monopoly 
control  of  the  opium  importation.  To-day,  at 
Shanghai,  where  the  British  predominate  in 
population,  in  trade,  and  in  the  city  government, 
the  opium  evil  is  mishandled  in  a  scandalous 
manner,  and — as  elsewhere — for  profit.  Small 
wonder,  therefore,  that  other  and  less  scrupulous 
foreign  nations,  where  they  have  an  opportunity 
to  profit  by  this  vicious  traffic,  as  at  Tientsin, 
hasten  to  do  so. 

These  three  great  ports — Shanghai,  Tientsin, 
and  Hongkong — are  in  constant  touch  com- 
mercially with  a  grand  total  of  very  nearly 
200,000,000  Chinese.  They  are,  therefore,  con- 
stantly exerting  a  direct  influence  on  that  num- 
ber of  Chinese  minds.  As  I  have  pointed  out, 
this  influence,  because  it  is  concentrated  and 
tangible,  is  much  stronger  than  the  admittedly 
potent  influence  of  the  widely  scattered  mission- 
aries, physicians,  and  teachers.  From  the  life 
and  example  of  the  Western  nations,  as  they 


150  Drugging  a  Nation 

exist  at  these  ports,  the  Chinaman  is  drawing 
most  of  his  ideas  of  progress  and  enlighten- 
ment. 

In  a  word,  the  new  China  that  we  shall  sooner 
or  later  have  to  deal  with  among  the  nations  of 
the  world  is  the  new  China  that  the  ports  are 
helping  to  make — for  this  new  China  is  to-day 
in  process  of  development.  She  is  struggling 
heroically  to  digest  and  assimilate  the  Western 
ideas  which  alone  can  bring  life  and  vigour  to  the 
sluggish  Chinese  mass.  And  yet,  turning  west- 
ward for  aid,  China  is  confronted  with — Shang- 
hai, Tientsin,  and  Hongkong.  Turning  to  Brit- 
ain for  a  helping  hand  in  her  effort  to  check  the 
inroads  of  opium,  she  hears  this  cheerful  doc- 
trine from  the  one  British  colony  which  China 
can  really  see  and  partly  understand,  Hong- 
kong— "  It  is  up  to  China."  Dr.  Morrison  has 
stated  in  one  of  his  letters  to  the  Times  that  Brit- 
ain's attitude  towards  China  is  one  of  sympathy, 
tempered  by  a  lack  of  information.  One  very 
eminent  British  diplomat  with  whom  I  discussed 
the  opium  question  assured  me  that  that  attitude 
of  his  government  was  "  most  sympathetic." 
Later,  in  London,  I  found  that  this  same  govern- 
ment was  quieting  an  aroused  public  opinion 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  151 

with  assurances  that  steps  were  being  taken 
towards  an  agreement  with  China  in  the  matter 
of  opium.  All  this  was  in  the  spring  and  sum- 
mer of  1907.  Six  months  later,  the  one  British 
colony  in  China,  and  the  two  great  international 
ports,  were  cheerfully  continuing  their  cynical 
policy  of  sneering  at  or  ignoring  the  attempts  of 
the  Chinese  to  overcome  their  master-vice,  and 
were  cheerfully  profiting  by  the  situation. 

It  would  perhaps  seem  fanciful  to  suggest  that 
the  great  nations  should  unite  to  regulate  the 
coast  ports.  It  would  appear  obvious  that  such 
regulation,  in  so  far  as  it  might  create  a  better 
understanding  between  the  Chinese  and  the 
representatives  of  foreign  civilizations  with  whom 
they  must  come  in  contact,  would  work  to  the 
advantage  of  commercial  interests.  Anti-foreign 
riots  are  in  progress  to-day  in  China  which  have 
their  roots  partly  in  racial  misconception,  partly 
in  a  long  tradition  of  injustice  and  bad  faith  ;  and 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  suggest  that  an  atmos- 
phere of  injustice,  bad  faith,  and  rioting  is  not 
the  best  atmosphere  in  which  to  carry  on  trade. 
But,  nevertheless,  the  inevitable  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  drawing  the  great  nations  together  in  the 
interests  of  a  better  understanding  with  the 


152  Drugging  a  Nation 

Chinese  people  would  seem  to  make  such  a  solu- 
tion academic  rather  than  practical. 

But,  still  hoping  that  something  may  be  done 
about  it,  something  that  may  lessen  the  likeli- 
hood of  the  reaping  of  a  whirlwind  in  China, 
suppose  that  we  alter  the  phrase  of  that  Hong- 
kong editorial  and  state  that  instead  of  the  prob- 
lem being  up  to  China,  it  is  distinctly  up  to 
Great  Britain  ?  Great  Britain  brought  the  opium 
into  China.  Great  Britain  kept  it  there  until  it 
took  root  and  spread  over  the  native  soil.  Great 
Britain  has  admitted  her  guilt,  and  had  pledged 
herself  by  a  majority  vote  in  Parliament,  and  by  the 
promises  of  her  governing  ministers,  to  do  some- 
thing about  it.  Suppose  that  Great  Britain  be 
called  upon  to  make  good  her  pledge  ?  It  would 
be  an  interesting  experiment.  All  that  is  neces- 
sary is  to  cut  down  the  production  of  opium  in 
India,  year  by  year,  until  it  ceases  altogether, 
and  with  it  the  exportation  into  China.  This 
course  would  solve  automatically  the  opium 
problem  at  Hongkong ;  and  it  would  put  it  up 
to  the  municipal  authorities  at  Shanghai  and 
Tientsin  in  an  interesting  fashion.  It  would  in 
no  way  jeopardize  Britain's  interest  in  the  diplo- 
matic balance  of  the  Far  East.  It  would  work 


Tientsin  and  Hongkong  153 

for  the  good  rather  than  the  harm  of  the  trade 
with  China.  And  it  would  be  the  first  necessary 
step  in  the  arduous  matter  of  cleaning  up  the 
treaty  ports  and  setting  a  higher  example  to 
China. 

To  this  course  Great  Britain  would  appear  to 
be  committed  by  the  utterances  for  her  govern- 
ment. But  the  world,  like  the  man  from  Mis- 
souri, has  yet  to  be  "  shown."  In  a  later  chapter 
we  shall  consider  this  question  of  promise  and 
performance  in  the  light  of  Britain's  peculiar 
governmental  problem. 


VII 

HOW  BRITISH  CHICKENS  CAME  HOME  TO 
ROOST 

WE  have  seen,  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ters, that  the  Anglo-Indian  govern- 
ment controls  absolutely  the  produc- 
tion of  opium  in  India,  prepares  the  drug  for 
the  market  in  government-owned  and  govern- 
ment-operated factories,  and  sells  it  at  monthly 
auctions.  Let  me  also  recall  to  the  reader  that 
four-fifths  of  this  opium  is  prepared  to  suit  the 
known  taste  of  Chinese  consumers.  The  annual 
value  to  the  Anglo-Indian  government  of  this 
curious  industry,  it  will  be  recalled,  is  well  over 
#20,000,000. 

Now  we  have  to  consider  the  last  strong  de- 
fense of  this  policy  which  the  British  govern- 
ment has  seen  fit  to  offer  to  a  protesting  world, 
the  report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Opium. 
Against  this  stout  defense  of  the  opium  traffic  in 
all  its  branches,  we  are  able  to  set  not  only  the 
findings  of  other  governments,  such  as  those  of 
Japan,  the  Philippines,  and  Australia,  which  have 
'54 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     155 

opium  problems  of  their  own  to  deal  with,  but 
also  the  curious  attitude  of  a  certain  British  col- 
ony, amounting  almost  to  what  might  be  called 
an  opium  panic,  on  that  occasion  when  the  Ori- 
ental drug  found  its  way  near  enough  home  to 
menace  British  subjects  and  British  children. 

The  men  who  administer  the  government  of 
India  have  a  chronically  difficult  job  on  their 
hands.  In  order  to  keep  it  on  their  hands  they 
have  got  to  please  the  British  public ;  and  that  is 
not  so  easy  as  it  perhaps  sounds.  It  would  appar- 
ently please  both  the  government  and  the  public 
if  the  whole  opium  question  could  be  thrown  after 
the  twenty  thousand  chests  of  Canton — into  the 
sea.  But  the  British  public  is  hard-headed,  and 
proud  of  it ;  and  the  spectacle  of  the  magnificent, 
panoplied  government  of  India  gone  bankrupt, 
or  so  embarrassed  as  to  be  calling  upon  the 
Home  government  for  aid,  would  not  please  it  at 
all.  Of  the  two  evils,  debauching  China  or 
gravely  impairing  the  finances  of  India,  there  has 
been  reason  to  believe  that  it  would  prefer  de- 
bauching China.  That,  at  least,  is  what  success- 
ive governments  of  Britain  and  of  India  seem  to 
have  concluded.  It  has  seemed  wiser  to  endure 
a  known  quantity  of  abuse  for  sticking  to  opium 


156  Drugging  a  Nation 

than  to  risk  the  cold  British  scorn  for  the  bank- 
rupt ;  and,  accordingly,  the  Indian  government 
with  the  approval  of  one  Home  government  after 
another,  has  stuck  to  opium.  The  only  alterna- 
tive course,  that  of  developing  a  new,  healthy 
source  of  revenue  to  supplant  opium,  the  un- 
healthy, would  involve  real  ideas  and  an  immense 
amount  of  trouble ;  and  these  two  things  are  only 
less  abhorrent  to  the  administrative  mind  than 
political  annihilation  itself. 

But  there  came  a  time,  not  so  long  ago,  when 
a  wave  of  "  anti-opium  "  feeling  swept  over  Eng- 
land, and  the  British  public  suddenly  became 
very  hard  to  please.  Parliament  agreed  that  the 
idea  of  a  government  opium  monopoly  in  India 
was  "  morally  indefensible,"  and  even  went  so  far 
as  to  send  out  a  "  Royal  Commission  "  to  investi- 
gate the  whole  question.  Now  this  commission, 
after  travelling  twenty  thousand  miles,  asking 
twenty-eight  thousand  questions,  and  publishing 
two  thousand  pages  (double  columns,  close  print) 
of  evidence,  arrived  at  some  remarkable  conclu- 
sions. "  Opium,"  says  the  Royal  Commission, 
"  is  harmful,  harmless,  or  even  beneficial,  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  and  discretion  with  which  it 
is  used.  .  .  .  It  is  [in  India]  the  universal 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     157 

household  remedy.  ...  It  is  extensively 
administered  to  infants,  and  the  practice  does 
not  appear,  to  any  appreciable  extent,  injurious. 
,  .  .  It  does  not  appear  responsible  for  any 
disease  peculiar  to  itself."  As  to  the  traffic  with 
China,  the  Commission  states — "  Responsibility 
mainly  lies  with  the  Chinese  government."  And, 
finally  (which  seems  to  bring  out  the  pith  of  the 
matter),  "  In  the  present  circumstances  the  rev- 
enue derived  from  opium  is  indispensable  for 
carrying  on  with  efficiency  the  government  of 
India." 

To  one  familiar  with  this  extraordinary  sum- 
ming-up of  the  evidence,  it  seems  hardly  surpris- 
ing that  the  Rt.  Hon.  John  Morley,  the  present 
Secretary  of  State  for  India,  should  have  said  in 
Parliament  (May,  1906) — "  I  do  not  wish  to  speak 
in  disparagement  of  the  Commission,  but  some- 
how or  other  its  findings  have  failed  to  satisfy 
public  opinion  in  this  country  and  to  ease  the 
consciences  of  those  who  have  taken  up  the 
matter." 

The  methods  employed  by  a  Royal  Commis- 
sion which  could  arrive  at  such  remarkable  con- 
clusions could  hardly  fail  to  be  interesting.  The 
Government  opium  traffic  was  a  scandal.  Parlia- 


158  Drugging  a  Nation 

ment  was  on  record  against  it.  There  was 
simply  nothing  to  be  said  for  opium  or  for  the 
opium  monopoly.  It  was  "  morally  indefen- 
sible " — officially  so.  It  was  agreed  that  the  In- 
dian government  should  be  "  urged "  to  cease 
to  grant  licenses  for  the  cultivation  of  the  poppy 
and  for  the  sale  of  opium  in  British  India.  This 
was  interesting — even  gratifying.  There  was  but 
one  obstacle  in  the  way  of  putting  an  end  to  the 
whole  business ;  and  that  obstacle  was,  in  some 
inexplicable  way,  this  same  British  government. 
The  opium  monopoly,  morally  indefensible  or 
not,  seemed  to  be  going  serenely  and  steadily 
on.  If  the  Indian  government  was  urged  in  the 
matter,  there  was  no  record  of  it. 

Two  years  passed.  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  great 
prime  minister,  deplored  the  opium  evil — and 
took  pains  not  to  stop  or  limit  it.  Like  the 
House  of  Peers  in  the  Napoleonic  wars,  he  "  did 
nothing  in  particular — and  did  it  very  well."  So 
the  vigilant  crusaders  came  at  the  government 
again.  In  June,  1893,  Mr.  Alfred  Webb  moved 
a  resolution  which  (so  ran  the  hopes  of  these 
crusaders)  the  most  nearly  Christian  government 
could  not  resist  or  evade.  Sure  of  the  anti-opium 
majority,  the  new  resolution,  "  having  regard  to 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     159 

the  opinion  expressed  by  the  vote  of  this  House 
on  the  loth  of  April,  1891,  that  the  system  by 
which  the  Indian  opium  revenue  is  raised  is 
morally  indefensible,  .  .  .  and  recognizing 
that  the  people  of  India  ought  not  to  be  called 
upon  to  bear  the  cost  involved  in  this  change  of 
policy,"  demanded  that  "a  Royal  Commission 
should  be  appointed  ...  to  report  as  to  (l) 
What  retrenchments  and  reforms  can  be  effected 
in  the  military  and  civil  expenditures  of  India ; 
(2)  By  what  means  Indian  resources  can  be  best 
developed;  and  (3)  What,  if  any,  temporary  as- 
sistance from  the  British  Exchequer  would  be  re- 
quired in  order  to  meet  any  deficit  of  revenue 
which  would  be  occasioned  by  the  suppression 
of  the  opium  traffic." 

The  crusaders  had  underestimated  the  parlia- 
mentary skill  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  He  promptly 
moved  a  counter  resolution,  proposing  that "  this 
House  press  on  the  Government  of  India  to  con- 
tinue their  policy  of  greatly  diminishing  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  poppy  and  the  production  and 
sale  of  opium,  and  demanding  a  Royal  Commis- 
sion to  report  as  to  (i)  Whether  the  growth  of 
the  poppy  and  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  opium 
in  British  India  should  be  prohibited.  .  .•'..-, ^ 


160  Drugging  a  Nation 

(4)  The  effect  on  the  finances  of  India  of  the 
prohibition  .  .  .  taking  into  consideration 
(a)  the  amount  of  compensation  payable ;  (b)  the 
cost  of  the  necessary  preventive  measures ;  (c)  the 
loss  of  revenue.  ...  (5)  The  disposition 
of  the  people  of  India  in  regard  to  (a)  the  use  of 
opium  for  non-medical  purposes ;  (b)  their  will- 
ingness to  bear  in  whole  or  in  part  the  cost  of 
prohibitive  measures." 

Mr.  Gladstone's  resolution  looked,  to  the  un- 
thinking, like  an  anti-opium  document.  He 
doubtless  meant  that  it  should,  for  in  his  task  of 
maintaining  the  opium  traffic  he  had  to  work 
through  an  anti-opium  majority.  Mr.  Webb's 
resolution,  starting  from  the  assumption  that  the 
government  was  committed  to  suppressing  the 
traffic,  called  for  a  commission  merely  to  arrange 
the  necessary  details.  Mr.  Gladstone's  resolution 
raised  the  whole  question  again,  and  instructed 
the  commission  not  only  to  call  particular  atten- 
tion to  the  cost  of  prohibition  (the  shrewd  premier 
knew  his  public ! ),  not  only  to  find  out  if  the  vic- 
tims of  opium  in  India  wished  to  continue  the 
habit,  but  also  threw  the  whole  burden  of  cost  on 
the  poverty-stricken  people  of  India — which  he 
knew  perfectly  well  they  could  not  bear.  The 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     161 

original  resolution  had  sprung  out  of  a  moral 
outcry  against  the  China  trade.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
in  beginning  again  at  the  beginning,  ignored  the 
China  trade  and  the  effects  of  opium  on  the 
Chinese. 

But  more  interesting,  if  less  significant  than 
this  attitude,  was  the  suggestion  that  the  Indian 
government  "  continue  their  policy  of  greatly 
diminishing  the  cultivation  of  the  poppy."  Now 
this  suggestion  conveyed  an  impression  that  was 
either  true  or  false.  Either  the  Indian  govern- 
ment was  putting  down  opium  or  it  was 
not.  In  either  event,  if  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not 
fully  informed,  it  was  his  own  fault,  for  the  ma- 
chinery of  government  was  in  his  hands.  The 
best  way  to  straighten  out  this  tangle  would  seem 
to  be  to  consult  the  report  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
commission.  This  commission,  on  its  arrival  in 
India,  found  no  trace  of  a  policy  of  suppressing 
the  trade.  Sir  David  Balfour,  the  head  of  the 
Indian  Finance  Department,  said  to  the  commis- 
sion :  "  I  was  not  aware  that  that  was  the  policy 
of  the  Home  government  until  the  statement  was 
made.  .  .  .  The  policy  has  been  for  some 
time  to  sell  about  the  same  amount  every  year, 
neither  diminishing  that  amount  nor  increasing 


162  Drugging  a  Nation 

it.  I  should  say  decidedly,  that  at  present  our 
desire  is  to  obtain  the  maximum  revenue  from 
the  opium  consumed  in  India."  As  regarded 
the  China  trade,  Sir  David  added:  "We  will 
not  largely  increase  the  cultivation  because  we 
shall  be  attacked  if  we  do  so."  And  this — "  We 
have  adopted  a  middle  course  and  preserved  the 
status  quo  with  reference  to  the  China  trade." 

Mr.  Gladstone's  resolution  was  adopted  by  184 
votes  to  105,  the  anti-opium  crusaders  voting 
against  it.  And  the  Royal  Commission,  with 
instructions  not,  as  had  been  intended,  to  arrange 
the  details  of  a  plan  for  stopping  the  opium 
traffic,  but  with  instructions  to  consider  whether 
it  would  pay  to  stop  it,  and  if  not,  whether  the 
people  of  India  could  be  made  to  stand  the  loss, 
started  out  on  its  rather  hopeless  journey. 

One  thing  the  crusaders  had  succeeded  in  ac- 
complishing— they  had  forced  the  government 
to  send  a  commission  to  India.  They  had  got 
one  or  two  of  their  number  on  the  body.  The 
commission  would  have  to  hear  the  evidence, 
would  be  forced  to  air  the  situation  thoroughly, 
showing  a  paternal  government  not  only  manu- 
facturing opium  for  the  China  trade,  but  actually, 
since  1891,  manufacturing  pills  of  opium  mixed 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     163 

with  spices  for  the  children  and  infants  of  India. 
If  the  Indian  government,  now  at  last  brought 
to  an  accounting,  wished  to  keep  the  opium 
business  going,  they  could  do  two  things — they 
could  see  that  the  "  right  "  sort  of  evidence  was 
given  to  the  commission,  and  they  could  try  to  in- 
fluence the  commission  directly.  They  adopted 
both  courses ;  though  it  appears  now,  to  one 
who  goes  over  the  attitude  of  the  majority  of  the 
commission  and  especially  of  Lord  Brassey,  the 
chairman,  as  shown  in  the  records,  that  little 
direct  influence  was  necessary.  Lord  Brassey 
and  his  majority  were  pro-opium,  through  and 
through.  The  Home  government  had  seen  to 
that. 

The  problem,  then,  of  the  administrators  of 
the  Indian  government  and  of  this  pro-opium 
commission  was  to  defend  a  "  morally  indefensi- 
ble" condition  of  affairs  in  order  to  maintain 
the  revenue  of  the  Indian  government.  It  was 
a  problem  neither  easy  nor  pleasant. 

The  Viceroy  of  India  was  Lord  Lansdowne. 
He  went  at  the  problem  with  shrewdness  and 
determination.  His  attitude  was  precisely  what 
one  has  learned  to  expect  in  the  viceroys  of 
India.  A  later  viceroy,  Lord  Curzon,  has 


164  Drugging  a  Nation 

spoken  with  infinite  scorn  of  the  "  opium  fad- 
dists." Lord  Lansdowne  approached  the  busi- 
ness in  the  same  spirit.  He  began  by  sending  a 
telegram  from  his  government  to  the  British 
Secretary  of  State  for  India,  which  contained  the 
following  passage:  "We  shall  be  prepared  to 
suggest  non-official  witnesses,  who  will  give  in- 
dependent evidence,  but  we  cannot  undertake  to 
specially  search  for  witnesses  who  will  give 
evidence  against  opium.  We  presume  this  will 
be  done  by  the  Anti-Opium  Society."  This 
message  had  been  sent  in  August,  1893,  but  it 
was  not  made  public  until  the  i8th  of  the 
following  November.  On  November  2Oth  Lord 
Lansdowne  sent  a  letter  to  Lord  Brassey, 
"  which,"  says  Mr.  Henry  J.  Wilson,  M.  P.,  in 
his  minority  report,  "  was  passed  around  among 
the  members  [of  the  commission]  for  perusal. 
It  contained  a  statement  in  favour  of  the  exist- 
ing opium  system,  and  against  interference  with 
that  system  as  likely  to  lead  to  serious  trouble. 
This  appeared  to  me  a  departure  from  the 
judicial  attitude  which  might  have  been  expected 
from  Her  Majesty's  representatives." 

From  this  Mr.  Wilson  goes  on,  in  his  report, 
to  lay  bare  the  methods  of  the  Indian  govern- 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     165 

ment  in  preparing  evidence  for  the  commission. 
To  say  that  these  methods  show  a  departure 
from  the  expected  "  judicial  attitude  "  is  to  speak 
with  great  moderation.  It  is  not  necessary,  I 
think,  to  weary  the  reader  with  the  details  of 
these  extended  operations.  That  is  not  the 
purpose  of  this  writing.  It  should  be  enough  to 
say  that  Lord  Lansdowne  and  his  Indian  govern- 
ment ordered  that  all  evidence  should  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  commission  through  their  offices  ; 
that  only  pro-opium  evidence  was  submitted ;  that 
a  government  official  travelled  with  the  commis- 
sion and  openly  worked  up  the  evidence  in 
advance ;  that  the  minority  members  were 
hindered  and  hampered  in  their  attempts  at  real 
investigation,  and  were  shadowed  by  detectives 
when  they  travelled  independently  in  the  opium- 
producing  regions ;  and,  finally,  that  Lord 
Brassey  abruptly  closed  the  report  of  the  commis- 
sion without  giving  the  minority  members  an 
opportunity  to  discuss  it  in  detail.  The  result  of 
these  methods  was  precisely  what  might  have 
been  expected.  Opium  was  declared  a  mild  and 
harmless  stimulant  for  all  ages.  No  home,  in 
short,  was  complete  without  it.  j 

There  is  an  answer  to  the  report  of  the  Royal 


166  'Drugging  a  Nation 

Commission  on  opium  more  telling  than  can  be 
found  in  speeches  or  in  minority  reports.  In  an 
earlier  article  we  examined  into  the  beginnings 
of  opium.  We  saw  how  it  is  grown  and  manu- 
factured ;  how  it  passes  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
British  government  into  the  currents  of  trade ; 
how  it  is  carried  along  on  these  currents — small 
quantities  of  it  washing  up  in  passing  the  Straits 
and  the  Malay  Archipelago — to  China ;  how  it 
blends  at  the  Chinese  ports  in  the  flood  of  the 
new  native-grown  opium  and  divides  among  the 
trade  currents  of  that  great  empire  until  every 
province  receives  its  supply  of  the  "  foreign  dirt." 
Now  let  us  follow  it  farther ;  for  it  does  not  stop 
there. 

The  Chinese  are  great  traders  and  great  trav- 
ellers. The  weight  of  the  national  misery  presses 
them  out  into  whatever  new  regions  promise  a 
reward  for  industry.  They  swarmed  over  the 
Pacific  to  America  in  a  yellow  cloud  until 
America,  in  sheer  self-defense,  barred  them  out. 
They  swarmed  southward  to  Australia  until 
Australia  closed  the  doors  on  them.  They 
swarm  to-day  into  the  Philippines  and  into 
Malaysia.  In  the  Straits  Settlement,  in  a  total 
population  of  a  little  over  half  a  million,  more 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     167 

than  half  (282,000)  are  Chinese.  When  America 
would  build  the  Panama  Canal,  her  first  impulse 
is  to  import  the  cheap  Chinese  labourer,  who  is 
always  so  eager  to  come.  When  Britain  took 
over  the  Transvaal  she  imported  70,000  Chinese 
labourers.  And  where  the  Chinese  travel,  opium 
travels  too. 

The  real  answer  to  the  Royal  Commission  on 
opium  should  be  found  in  the  attitude  of  these 
countries  which  have  had  to  face  the  opium  prob- 
lem along  with  the  Chinese  problem.  Let  us  in- 
clude in  the  list  Japan,  a  country  which  has  had 
a  remarkable  opportunity  to  view  the  opium 
menace  at  short  range.  What  Japan  thinks 
about  opium,  what  Australia  and  the  Transvaal 
and  the  United  States  think,  what  the  Philippines 
think,  is  more  to  the  point  than  any  first-hand 
statements  of  a  magazine  reporter.  We  will  take 
Japan  first.  Does  Japan  think  that  opium  is  in- 
valuable as  a  general  household  remedy  ?  Does 
Japan  think  that  opium  is  good  for  children  ? 

Here  is  what  the  Philippine  Opium  Commis- 
sion, whose  report  is  accepted  to-day  as  the  most 
authoritative  survey  of  the  opium  situation,  has 
to  say  about  opium  in  Japan  : 

"  Japan,  which  is  a  non- Christian  country,  is 


168  Drugging  a  Nation 

the  only  country  visited  by  the  committee  where 
the  opium  question  is  dealt  with  in  the  purely 
moral  and  social  aspect.  .  .  .  Legislation  is 
enacted  without  the  distraction  of  commercial 
motives  and  interest.  ...  No  surer  testi- 
mony to  the  reality  of  the  evil  effects  of  opium 
can  be  found  than  the  horror  with  which  China's 
next-door  neighbour  views  it.  ...  The 
Japanese  to  a  man  fear  opium  as  we  fear  the 
cobra  or  the  rattlesnake,  and  they  despise  its 
victims.  There  has  been  no  moment  in  the  na- 
tion's history  when  the  people  have  wavered  in 
their  uncompromising  attitude  towards  the  drug 
and  its  use,  so  that  an  instinctive  hatred  possesses 
them.  China's  curse  has  been  Japan's  warning, 
and  a  warning  heeded.  An  opium  user  in  Japan 
would  be  socially  a  leper. 

"  The  opium  law  of  Japan  forbids  the  importa- 
tion, the  possession,  and  the  use  of  the  drug,  ex- 
cept as  a  medicine  ;  and  it  is  kept  to  the  letter  in 
a  population  of  47,000,000,  of  whom  perhaps 
25,000  are  Chinese.  So  rigid  are  the  provisions 
of  the  law  that  it  is  sometimes,  especially  in  in- 
terior towns,  almost  impossible  to  secure  opium 
or  its  alkaloids  in  cases  of  medical  necessity. 
>;..  ••  •'•..  The  government  is  determined  to  keep 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     169 

the  opium  habit  strictly  confined  to  what  they 
deem  to  be  its  legitimate  use,  which  use  even, 
they  seem  to  think,  is  dangerous  enough  to  re- 
quire special  safeguarding. 

"  Certain  persons  are  authorized  by  the  head 
official  of  each  district  to  manufacture  and  pre- 
pare opium  for  medicinal  purposes.  .  .  .  That 
which  is  up  to  the  required  standard  (in  quality) 
is  sold  to  the  government :  and  that  which  falls 
short  is  destroyed.  The  accepted  opium  is  sealed 
in  proper  receptacles  and  sold  to  a  selected  num- 
ber of  wholesale  dealers  (apothecaries)  who  in 
turn  provide  physicians  and  retail  dealers  with  the 
drug  for  medicinal  uses  only.  It  can  reach  the 
patient  for  whose  relief  it  is  desired  only  through 
the  prescription  of  the  attending  physician.  The 
records  of  those  who  thus  use  opium  in  any 
of  its  various  forms  must  be  preserved  for  ten 
years. 

"The  people  not  merely  obey  the  law,  but 
they  are  proud  of  it;  they  would  not  have  it 
altered  if  they  could.  It  is  the  law  of  the  gov- 
ernment, but  it  is  the  law  of  the  people  also. 
.  .  .  Apparently,  the  vigilance  of  the  police  is 
such  that  even  when  opium  is  successfully  smug- 
gled in,  it  cannot  be  smoked  without  detection. 


170  Drugging  a  Nation 

The  pungent  fumes  of  cooked  opium  are  unmis- 
takable, and  betray  the  user  almost  inevitably. 
.  .  .  There  is  an  instance  on  record  where  a 
couple  of  Japanese  lads  in  North  Formosa  ex- 
perimented with  opium  just  for  a  lark ;  and 
though  they  were  guilty  only  on  this  occasion, 
they  were  detected,  arrested,  and  punished." 

That  is  what  Japan  thinks  about  opium. 

The  conclusions  of  this  Philippine  Commission 
formed  the  basis  of  the  new  opium  prohibition  in 
the  Philippines,  which  went  into  effect  March  I, 
1908.  The  plan  is  a  modification  of  the  Japanese 
system  of  dealing  with  the  evil. 

Australia  and  New  Zealand  have  also  been 
forced  to  face  the  opium  problem.  New  Zea- 
land, by  an  act  of  1901,  amended  in  1903,  pro- 
hibits the  traffic,  and  makes  offenders  liable  to  a 
penalty  not  exceeding  $2,500  (£500)  for  each 
offense.  In  the  Australian  Federal  Parliament 
the  question  was  brought  to  an  issue  two  or 
three  years  ago.  Petitions  bearing  200,000  sig- 
natures were  presented  to  the  parliament,  and  in 
response  a  law  was  enacted  absolutely  prohibit- 
ing the  importation  of  opium,  except  for  medic- 
inal uses,  after  January  I,  1906.  All  the  state 
governments  of  Australia  lose  revenue  by  this 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     171 

prohibition.  The  voice  of  the  Australian  people 
was  apparently  expressed  in  the  Federal  Parlia- 
ment by  Hon.  V.  L.  Solomon,  who  said  :  "  In 
the  cities  of  the  Southern  States  anybody  going 
to  the  opium  dens  would  see  hundreds  of  appar- 
ently respectable  Europeans  indulging  in  this 
horrible  habit.  It  is  a  hundredfold  more  damag- 
ing, both  physically  and  morally,  than  the  indul- 
gence in  alcoholic  liquors." 

That  is  what  Australia  and  New  Zealand  think 
about  opium. 

The  attitude  of  the  United  States  is  thus  de- 
scribed by  the  Philippine  Commission  :  "  It  is 
not  perhaps  generally  known  that  in  the  only 
instance  where  America  has  made  official  utter- 
ances relative  to  the  use  of  opium  in  the  East, 
she  has  spoken  with  no  uncertain  voice.  By 
treaty  with  China  in  1880,  and  again  in  1903,  no 
American  bottoms  are  allowed  to  carry  opium  in 
Chinese  waters.  This  ...  is  due  to  a  rec- 
ognition that  the  use  of  opium  is  an  evil  for 
which  no  financial  gain  can  compensate,  and 
which  America  will  not  allow  her  citizens  to  en- 
courage even  passively."  By  the  terms  of  this 
treaty,  citizens  of  the  United  States  are  for- 
bidden to  "  import  opium  into  any  of  the  open 


IJ2  Drugging  a  Nation 

ports  of  China,  or  transport  from  one  open  port 
to  any  other  open  port,  or  to  buy  and  sell  opium 
in  any  of  the  open  ports  of  China.  This  abso- 
lute prohibition  .  .  .  extends  to  vessels 
owned  by  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  either 
power,  to  foreign  vessels  employed  by  them,  or 
to  vessels  owned  by  the  citizens  or  subjects  of 
either  power  and  employed  by  other  persons  for 
the  transportation  of  opium."  Thus  the  United 
States  is  flatly  on  record  as  forbidding  her  citi- 
zens to  engage,  in  any  way  whatever,  in  the 
Chinese  opium  traffic. 

The  last  item  of  expert  evidence  which  I  shall 
present  from  the  countries  most  deeply  con- 
cerned in  the  opium  question  is  from  that  British 
colony,  the  Transvaal.  Were  the  subject  less 
grim,  it  would  be  difficult  to  restrain  a  smile  over 
this  bit  of  evidence — it  is  so  human,  and  so  hu- 
morous. For  a  century  and  more,  Anglo-Indian 
officials  have  been  kept  busy  explaining  that 
opium  is  a  heaven-sent  blessing  to  mankind. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  many  of  them  have  come 
to  believe  the  words  they  have  repeated  so  often. 
Why  not  ?  China  was  a  long  way  off— and  India 
certainly  did  need  the  money.  The  poor  official 
had  to  please  the  sovereign  people  back  home, 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     173 

one  way  or  another.  If  a  choice  between  evils 
seemed  necessary,  was  he  to  blame  ?  We  must 
try  not  to  be  too  hard  on  the  government  offi- 
cial. Perhaps  opium  was  good  for  children. 
Keep  your  blind  eye  to  the  telescope  and  you 
can  imagine  anything  you  like. 

The  situation  was  given  its  grimly  humorous 
twist  when  the  monster  opium  began  to  invade 
regions  nearer  home.  It  came  into  the  Trans- 
vaal after  the  Boer  War,  along  with  those  70,000 
Chinese  labourers.  The  result  can  only  be  de- 
scribed as  an  opium  panic.  I  quote,  regarding 
it,  from  that  "  Memorandum  Concerning  Indo- 
Chinese  Opium  Trade,"  which  was  prepared  for 
the  debate  in  Parliament  during  May,  1906: 

"  The  Transvaal  offers  a  striking  illustration  of 
the  old  proverb  as  to  chickens  coming  home  to 
roost. 

"  On  the  6th  of  September,  1905,  Sir  George 
Farrar  moved  the  adjournment  of  the  Legislative 
Council  at  Pretoria,  to  call  attention  to  'the 
enormous  quantity  of  opium'  finding  its  way 
into  the  Transvaal.  He  urged  that  '  measures 
should  be  taken  for  the  immediate  stopping  of 
the  traffic.'  On  6th  October,  an  ordinance  was 
issued,  restricting  the  importation  of  opium  to 


174  Drugging  a  Nation 

registered  chemists,  only,  according  to  regula- 
tions to  be  prescribed  by  permits  by  the  lieuten- 
ant-governor— under  a  penalty  not  exceeding 
j£5OO  ($2,500),  or  imprisonment  not  exceeding 
six  months. 

"  Any  person  in  possession  of  such  substance 
.  .  .  except  for  medicinal  purposes,  unless 
under  a  permit,  is  liable  to  similar  penalties. 
Stringent  rights  of  search  are  given  to  police, 
constables,  under  certain  circumstances,  without 
even  the  necessity  of  a  written  authority. 

"  The  under-secretary  for  the  colonies  has  also 
stated, '  that  the  Chinese  Labour  Importation  Or- 
dinance, 1904,  has  been  amended  to  penalize  the 
possession  by,  and  supply  to,  Chinese  labourers 
of  opium.' " 

Apparently  opium  is  not  good  for  the  children 
of  South  Africa.  That  it  would  be  good  (to  get 
still  nearer  home)  for  the  children  and  infants  of 
Great  Britain,  is  an  idea  so  monstrous,  so  horri- 
ble, that  I  hardly  dare  suggest  it.  No  one,  I 
think,  would  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  Royal 
Commission  would  have  reached  those  same 
extraordinary  conclusions  had  the  problem  lain 
in  Great  Britain  instead  of  in  far-off  India  and 
China.  Walk  about,  of  a  sunny  afternoon,  in 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     175 

Kensington  Gardens.  Watch  the  ruddy,  healthy 
children  sailing  their  boats  in  the  Round  Pond,  or 
playing  in  the  long  grass  where  the  sheep  are 
nibbling,  or  running  merrily  along  the  well-kept 
borders  of  the  Serpentine.  They  are  splendid 
youngsters,  these  little  Britishers.  Their  skins 
are  tanned,  their  eyes  are  clear,  their  little  bodies 
are  compactly  knit.  Each  child  has  its  watchful 
nurse.  What  would  the  mothers  say  if  His 
Majesty's  Most  Excellent  Government  should 
undertake  the  manufacture  and  distribution  of 
attractive  little  pills  of  opium  and  spices  for 
these  children,  and  should  defend  its  course  not 
only  on  the  ground  that  "  the  practice  does  not 
appear  to  any  appreciable  extent  injurious,"  but 
also  on  the  ground  that  "  the  revenue  obtained  is 
indispensable  for  carrying  on  the  government 
with  efficiency  "  ? 

What  would  these  British  mothers  say  ?  It  is 
a  fair  question.  The  "  conservative "  pro- 
opiumist  is  always  ready  with  an  answer  to  this 
question.  He  claims  that  it  is  not  fair.  He 
maintains  that  the  Oriental  is  different  from  the 
Occidental — racially.  Opium,  he  says,  has  no 
such  marked  'effect  on  the  Chinaman  as  it  has  on 
the  Englishman,  no  such  marked  effect  on  the 


176  Drugging  a  Nation 

Chinese  infant  as  it  has  on  the  British  infant.  I 
have  met  this  "  conservative "  pro-opiumist 
many  times  on  coasting  and  river  steamers  and 
in  treaty  port  hotels.  I  have  been  one  of  a 
group  about  a  rusty  little  stove  in  a  German- 
kept  hostelry  where  this  question  was  thrashed 
out.  Your  "  conservative  "  is  so  cock-sure  about 
it  that  he  grows,  in  the  heat  of  his  argument, 
almost  triumphant.  At  first  I  thought  that  per- 
haps he  might  be  partially  right.  One  man's 
meat  is  occasionally  another  man's  poison.  The 
Chinese  differ  from  us  in  so  many  ways  that  pos- 
sibly they  might  have  a  greater  capacity  to  with- 
stand the  ravages  of  opium. 

It  was  partly  to  answer  this  question  that  I 
went  to  China.  I  did  not  leave  China  until  I 
had  arrived  at  an  answer  that  seemed  convincing. 
If,  in  presenting  the  facts  in  these  columns,  the 
picture  I  have  been  painting  of  China's  problem 
should  verge  on  the  painful,  that,  I  am  afraid, 
will  be  the  fault  of  the  facts.  It  is  a  picture  of 
the  hugest  empire  in  the  whole  world,  fighting  a 
curse  which  has  all  but  mastered  it,  turning  for 
aid,  in  sheer  despair,  to  the  government,  that 
has  brought  it  to  the  edge  of  ruin.  Strange 
to  say,  this  British  government,  as  it  is  to- 


British  Chickens  Home  to  Roost     177 

day  constituted,  would  apparently  like  to  help. 
But,  across  the  path  of  assistance  stands,  like 
a  grotesque,  inhuman  dragon, — the  Indian  Rev- 
enue. 


VIII 
THE  POSITION  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN 

AN  observant  correspondent  recently 
wrote  from  Shanghai  to  a  New  York 
newspaper  :  "  China  has  missed  catch- 
ing the  fire  of  the  West  in  the  manner  of  Japan, 
and  has  lain  idle  and  supine  while  neighbour  and 
foreigner  despoiled  her.  Her  statesmanship 
has  been  languid  and  irresolute,  and  her  armies 
slow  and  spiritless  in  the  field.  Observers  who 
know  China,  and  are  familiar  at  the  same  time 
with  the  symptoms  of  opium,  say  that  it  is  as  if 
the  listless  symptoms  of  the  drug  were  to  be 
seen  in  the  very  nation  itself.  Many  conclude 
that  the  military  and  political  inertia  of  the 
Chinese  is  due  to  the  special  prevalence  of  the 
opium  habit  among  the  two  classes  of  Chinamen 
directly  responsible:  both  the  soldiers  and  the 
scholars,  among  whom  all  the  civil  and  political 
posts  are  held  in  monopoly,  are  notoriously  ad- 
dicted to  opium." 

The  point  which  these  chapters  should  make 
178 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        179 

clear  is  that  opium  is  the  evil  thing  which  is  not 
only  holding  China  back  but  is  also  actually 
threatening  to  bring  about  the  most  complete 
demoralization  and  decadence  that  any  large 
portion  of  the  world  has  ever  experienced.  It  is 
evident,  in  this  day  of  extended  trade  interests, 
that  such  a  paralysis  of  the  hugest  and  the  most 
industrious  of  the  great  races  would  amount  to 
a  world-disaster.  Already  the  United  States  is 
suffering  from  the  weakness  of  the  Chinese  gov- 
ernment in  Manchuria,  which  permits  Japan  to 
control  in  the  Manchurian  province  and  to  dis- 
criminate against  American  trade.  This  dis- 
crimination would  appear  to  have  been  one 
strong  reason  for  the  sailing  of  the  battleship 
fleet  to  the  Pacific.  If  this  relatively  small  result 
of  China's  weakness  and  inertia  can  arouse  great 
nations  and  can  play  a  part  in  the  moving  of 
great  fleets,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the 
world-importance  of  a  complete  breakdown. 
Every  great  Western  nation  has  a  trade  or  ter- 
ritorial footing  in  China  to  defend  and  maintain. 
Every  great  Western  nation  is  watching  the  com- 
plicated Chinese  situation  with  sleepless  eyes. 
Such  a  breakdown  might  quite  possibly  mean 
the  unconditional  surrender  of  China's  destiny 


180  Drugging  a  Nation 

into  the  hands  of  Japan ;  which,  with  Japan's 
growing  desire  to  dominate  the  Pacific,  and  with 
it  the  world,  might  quite  possibly  mean  the  rapid 
approach  of  the  great  international  conflict. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  course  of  these  chapters, 
that  China  appears  to  be  almost  completely  in 
the  grasp  of  her  master-vice.  The  opium  curse 
in  China  is  a  dreadful  example  of  the  economic 
waste  of  evil.  It  has  not  only  lowered  the  vi- 
tality, and  therefore  the  efficiency  of  men,  women, 
and  children  in  all  walks  of  life,  but  it  has  also 
crowded  the  healthier  crops  off  the  land,  usurped 
no  small  part  of  the  industrial  life,  turned  the 
balance  of  trade  against  China,  plunged  her  into 
wars,  loaded  her  with  indemnity  charges,  taken 
away  part  of  her  territory,  and  made  her  the 
plundering  ground  of  the  nations.  She  has  been 
compelled  to  look  indolently  on  while  Japan, 
alight  with  the  fire  of  progress,  has  raised  her 
brown  head  proudly  among  the  peoples  of  the 
West.  So  China  has  at  last  been  driven  to  make 
a  desperate  stand  against  the  encroachments  of 
the  curse  which  is  wrecking  her.  The  fight  is 
on  to-day.  It  is  plain  that  China  is  sincere ;  she 
must  be  sincere,  because  her  only  hope  lies  in 
conquering  opium.  She  has  turned  for  help  to 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        18 1 

Great  Britain,  for  Britain's  Indian  government 
developed  the  opium  trade  ("  for  purposes  of 
foreign  commerce  only  ")  and  continues  to-day 
to  pour  a  flood  of  the  drug  into  the  channels  of 
Chinese  trade.  Once  China  thought  to  crowd 
out  the  Indian  product  by  producing  the  drug 
herself,  as  a  preliminary  to  controlling  the  traffic, 
but  she  has  never  been  able  to  develop  a  grade 
of  opium  that  can  compete  with  the  brown  paste 
from  the  Ganges  Valley. 

This  summing  up  brings  us  to  a  consideration 
of  two  questions  which  must  be  considered  sooner 
or  later  by  the  people  of  the  civilized  world : 

1.  Can   China  hope  to   conquer  the  opium 
curse  without  the  help  of  Great  Britain  ? 

2.  What  is  Great  Britain  doing  to  help  her  ? 
In  attempting  to  work  out  the  answer  to  these 

questions,  we  must  think  of  them  simply  as  prac- 
tical problems  bearing  on  the  trade,  the  territorial 
development,  and  the  military  and  naval  power 
of  the  nations.  We  must  try  for  the  present  to 
ignore  the  mere  moral  and  ethical  suggestions 
which  the  questions  arouse. 

First,  then :  can  China,  single-handed,  possibly 
succeed  in  this  fight,  now  going  on,  against  the 
slow  paralysis  of  opium  ? 


182  Drugging  a  Nation 

China  is  not  a  nation  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
ordinarily  use  the  word.  If  we  picture  to  our- 
selves the  countries  of  Europe,  with  their  differ- 
ent languages  and  different  customs  drawn  to- 
gether into  a  loose  confederation  under  the  gov- 
ernment of  a  conquering  race,  we  shall  have 
some  small  conception  of  what  this  Chinese 
"  nation  "  really  is.  The  peoples  of  these  differ- 
ent European  countries  are  all  Caucasians ;  the 
different  peoples  of  China  are  all  Mongolians. 
These  Chinese  people  speak  eighteen  or  twenty 
"  languages,"  each  divided  into  almost  innumer- 
able dialects  and  sub-dialects.  They  are  gov- 
erned by  Manchu,  or  Tartar,  conquerors  who 
spring  from  a  different  stock,  wear  different  cos- 
tumes, and  speak,  among  themselves,  a  language 
wholly  different  from  any  of  the  eighteen  or 
twenty  native  tongues. 

In  making  this  diversity  clear,  it  is  necessary 
only  to  cite  a  few  illustrations.  There  is  not 
even  a  standard  of  currency  in  China.  Each 
province  or  group  of  provinces  has  its  own 
standard  tael,  differing  greatly  in  value  from 
the  tael  which  may  be  the  basis  of  value  in 
the  next  province  or  group.  There  is  no  gov- 
ernment coinage  whatever.  All  the  mints  are 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        183 

privately  owned  and  are  run  for  profit  in  supply- 
ing the  local  demand  for  currency,  and  the  basis 
of  this  currency  is  the  Mexican  dollar,  a  foreign 
unit.  They  make  dollar  bills  in  Honan  Province. 
I  went  into  Chili  Province  and  offered  some  of 
these  Honan  bills  in  exchange  for  purchases. 
The  merchants  merely  looked  at  them  and  shook 
their  heads.  "  Tientsin  dollar  have  got  ?  "  was 
the  question.  So  the  money  of  a  community  or 
a  province  is  simply  a  local  commodity  and  has 
either  a  lower  value  or  no  value  elsewhere,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  average  Chinaman 
knows  only  his  local  money  and  will  accept  no 
other.  The  diversity  of  language  is  as  easily  ob- 
served as  the  diversity  of  coinage.  On  the 
wharves  at  Shanghai  you  can  hear  a  Canton 
Chinaman  and  a  Shanghai  Chinaman  talking  to- 
gether in  pidgin  English,  their  only  means  of 
communication.  When  I  was  travelling  in  the 
Northwest,  I  was  accosted  in  French  one  day  by 
a  Chinese  station-agent,  on  the  Shansi  Railroad, 
who  frankly  said  that  he  was  led  to  speak  to  me, 
a  foreigner,  by  the  fact  that  he  was  a  "  foreigner  " 
too.  With  his  blue  gown  and  his  black  pigtail, 
he  looked  to  me  no  different  from  the  other  na- 
tives ;  but  he  told  me  that  he  found  the  language 


184  Drugging  a  Nation 

and  customs  of  Shansi  "difficult,"  and  that  he 
sometimes  grew  homesick  for  his  native  city  in 
the  South. 

That  the  Chinese  of  different  provinces  really 
regard  one  another  as  foreigners  may  be  illustra- 
ted by  the  fact  that,  during  the  Boxer  troubles 
about  Tientsin,  it  was  a  common  occurrence  for 
the  northern  soldiers  to  shoot  down  indiscrimi- 
nately with  the  white  men  any  Cantonese  who 
appeared  within  rifle-shot. 

This  diversity,  probably  a  result  of  the  cost 
and  difficulty  of  travel,  is  a  factor  in  the  immense 
inertia  which  hinders  all  progress  in  China. 
People  who  differ  in  coinage,  language,  and  cus- 
toms, who  have  never  been  taught  to  "  think  im- 
perially" or  in  terms  other  than  those  of  the 
village  or  city,  cannot  easily  be  led  into  cooper- 
ation on  a  large  scale.  It  is  difficult  enough, 
Heaven  knows,  to  effect  any  real  change  in  the 
government  of  an  American  city  or  state,  or  of 
the  nation,  let  alone  effecting  any  real  changes  in 
the  habits  of  men.  Witness  our  own  struggle 
against  graft.  Witness  also  the  vast  struggle 
against  the  liquor  traffic  now  going  on  in  a  score 
of  our  states.  Even  in  this  land  of  ours,  which 
is  so  new  that  there  has  hardly  been  time  to 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        185 

form  traditions ;  which  is  alert  to  the  value  of 
changes  and  quick  to  leap  in  the  direction  of 
progress  ;  which  is  essentially  homogeneous  in 
structure,  with  but  one  language,  innumerable 
daily  newspapers,  and  a  close  network  of  fast, 
comfortable  railway  trains  to  keep  the  various 
communities  in  touch  with  the  prevailing  idea  of 
the  moment,  how  easy  do  we  find  it  to  wipe  out 
race-track  gambling,  say,  or  to  make  our  insur- 
ance laws  really  effective,  or  to  check  the  corrupt 
practices  of  corporations,  or  to  establish  the 
principle  of  local  municipal  ownership  ?  To  put 
it  in  still  another  light,  how  easy  do  we  find  it 
to  bring  about  a  change  which  the  great  majority 
of  us  agree  would  be  for  the  better,  such  as  mak- 
ing over  the  costly,  cumbersome  express  busi- 
ness into  a  government  parcels  post  ? 

But  there  are  large  money  interests  which 
would  suffer  by  such  reforms,  you  say  ?  True  ; 
and  there  are  large  money  interests  suffering  by 
the  opium  reforms  in  China,  relatively  as  large 
as  any  money  interests  we  have  in  this  country. 
The  opium  reforms  affect  the  large  and  the  small 
farmers,  the  manufacturers,  the  transportation 
companies,  the  bankers,  the  commission  men, 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  shopkeepers,  and 


i86  Drugging  a  Nation 

the  government  revenues,  for  the  opium  traffic  is 
an  almost  inextricable  strand  in  the  fabric  of 
Chinese  commerce.  In  addition  to  these  bewil- 
dering complications  of  the  problem,  there  is  the 
discouraging  inertia  to  overcome  of  a  land  which, 
far  from  being  alert  and  active,  is  sunk  in  the 
lethargy  of  ancient  local  custom. 

No,  in  putting  down  her  master-vice,  China 
must  not  only  overcome  all  the  familiar  economic 
difficulties  that  tend  to  block  reform  everywhere, 
but,  in  addition,  must  find  a  way  to  rouse  and 
energize  the  most  backward  and  (outside  of  the 
age-old  grooves  of  conduct  and  government)  the 
most  unmanageable  empire  in  the  world. 

On  what  element  in  her  population  must 
China  rely  to  put  this  huge  reform  into  effect  ? 
On  the  officials,  or  mandarins,  who  carry  out  the 
governmental  edicts  in  every  province,  adminis- 
ter Chinese  justice,  and  control  the  military  and 
finances.  But  of  these  officials,  more  than 
ninety  per  cent,  have  been  known  to  be  opium- 
smokers,  and  fully  fifty  per  cent,  have  been 
financially  interested  in  the  trade. 

Still  another  obstacle  blocking  reform  is  the 
powerful  example  and  widespread  influence  of 
the  treaty  ports.  Perhaps  the  white  race  is 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        187 

"  superior  "  to  the  yellow ;  I  shall  not  dispute 
that  notion  here.  But  one  fact  which  I  know 
personally  is  that  every  one  of  the  treaty  ports, 
where  the  white  men  rule,  including  the  British 
crown  colony  of  Hongkong,  chose  last  year  to 
maintain  its  opium  revenue  regardless  of  the 
protests  of  the  Chinese  officials. 

Putting  down  opium  in  China  would  appear 
to  be  a  pretty  big  job.  The  "  vested  interests," 
yellow  and  white,  are  against  a  change;  the 
personal  habits  of  the  officials  themselves  work 
against  it ;  the  British  keep  on  pouring  in  their 
Indian  opium ;  and  by  way  of  a  positive  force 
on  the  affirmative  side  of  the  question  there 
would  appear  to  be  only  the  lethargy  and  im- 
potence of  a  decadent,  chaotic  race.  How  would 
you  like  to  tackle  a  problem  of  this  magnitude, 
as  Yuan  Shi  K'ai  and  Tong  Shao-i  have  done  ? 
Try  to  organize  a  campaign  in  your  home  town 
against  the  bill-board  nuisance ;  against  corrupt 
politics;  against  drink  or  cigarettes.  Would  it 
be  easy  to  succeed  ?  When  you  have  thought 
over  some  of  the  difficulties  that  would  block 
you  on  every  hand,  multiply  them  by  fifty 
thousand  and  then  take  off  your  hat  to  Tong 
Shao-i  and  Yuan  Shi  K'ai.  Personally,  I  think 


i88  Drugging  a  Nation 

I  should  prefer  undertaking  to  stamp  out  drink 
in  Europe.  I  should  know,  of  course,  that  it 
would  be  rather  a  difficult  business,  but  still  it 
would  be  easier  than  this  Chinese  proposition. 

So  much  for  the  difficulties  of  the  problem. 
Suppose  now  we  take  a  look  at  the  results  of  the 
first  year  of  the  fight.  There  are  no  exact 
statistics  to  be  had,  but  based  as  it  is  on  personal 
travel  and  observation,  on  reports  of  travelling 
officials,  merchants,  missionaries,  and  of  other 
journalists  who  have  been  in  regions  which  I  did 
not  reach,  I  think  my  estimate  should  be  fairly 
accurate.  Remember,  this  is  a  fight  to  a  finish. 
If  the  Chinese  government  loses,  opium  will  win. 

The  plan  of  the  government,  let  me  repeat,  is 
briefly  as  follows  :  First,  the  area  under  poppy 
cultivation  is  to  be  decreased  about  ten  per  cent, 
each  year,  until  that  cultivation  ceases  alto- 
gether; and  simultaneously  the  British  govern- 
ment is  to  be  requested  to  decrease  the  exporta- 
tion of  opium  from  India  ten  per  cent,  each 
year.  Second,  all  opium  dens  or  places  where 
couches  or  lamps  are  supplied  for  public  smok- 
ing are  to  be  closed  at  once  under  penalty  of 
confiscation.  Third,  all  persons  who  purchase 
opium  at  sale  shops  are  to  be  registered,  and  the 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        189 

amount  supplied  to  them  to  be  diminished  from 
month  to  month.  Meantime,  the  farmer  is  to  be 
given  all  possible  advice  and  aid  in  the  matter  of 
substituting  some  other  crop  for  the  poppy; 
opium  cures  and  hospitals  are  to  be  established 
as  widely  as  possible;  and  preachers  and  lecturers 
are  to  be  sent  out  to  explain  the  dangers  of 
opium  to  the  illiterate  millions. 

The  central  government  at  Peking  started  in 
by  giving  the  high  officials  six  months  in  which 
to  change  their  habits.  At  the  end  of  that 
period  a  large  number  were  suspended  from 
office,  including  Prince  Chuau  and  Prince  Jui. 

In  one  opium  province,  Shansi,  we  have  seen 
that  the  enforcement  was  at  the  start  effective. 
The  evidence,  gathered  with  some  difficulty  from 
residents  and  travellers,  from  roadside  gossip,  and 
from  talks  with  officials,  all  went  to  show  that  the 
dens  in  all  the  leading  cities  were  closed,  that  the 
manufacturers  of  opium  and  its  accessories  were 
going  out  of  business,  and  that  the  farmers  were 
beginning  to  limit  their  crops. 

The  enforcements  in  the  adjoining  province, 
Chih-li,  in  which  lies  Peking,  was  also  thoroughly 
effective  at  the  start.  The  opium  dens  in  all 
the  large  cities  were  closed  during  the  spring, 


190  Drugging  a  Nation 

and  the  restaurants  and  disorderly  houses  which 
had  formerly  served  opium  to  their  customers 
surrendered  their  lamps  and  implements. 
Throughout  the  other  provinces  north  of  the 
Yangtse  River,  while  there  was  evidence  of  a 
fairly  consistent  attempt  to  enforce  the  new 
regulations,  the  results  were  not  altogether  satis- 
fying. Along  the  central  and  southern  coast, 
from  Shanghai  to  Canton,  the  enforcement  was 
effective  in  about  half  the  important  centers  of 
population.  In  Canton,  or  Kwangtung  Province, 
the  prohibition  was  practically  complete. 

The  real  test  of  the  prohibition  movement  is 
to  come  in  the  great  interior  provinces  of  the 
South,  Yunnan  and  Kweichou,  and  in  the  huge 
western  province  of  Sze-chuan.  It  is  in  these 
regions  that  opium  has  had  its  strongest  grip  on 
the  people,  and  where  the  financial  and  agricul- 
tural phases  of  the  problems  are  most  acute.  All 
observers  recognized  that  it  was  unfair  to  expect 
immediate  and  complete  prohibition  in  these 
regions,  where  opium-growing  is  quite  as  grave 
a  question  as  opium-smoking.  The  beginning 
of  the  enforcement  in  Sze-chuan  seems  to  have 
been  cautious  but  sincere.  In  this  one  province 
the  share  of  the  imperial  tax  on  opium  alone, 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain         191 

over  and  above  local  needs,  amounts  to  more 
than  $2,000,000  (gold),  and,  thanks  to  the  con- 
stant demands  of  the  foreign  powers  for  their 
"  indemnity  "  money,  the  imperial  government 
is  hardly  in  a  position  to  forego  its  demands  on 
the  provinces.  But  recognizing  that  a  new  reve- 
nue must  be  built  up  to  supplant  the  old,  the 
three  new  opium  commissioners  of  Sze-chuan 
have  begun  by  preparing  addresses  explaining 
the  evils  of  opium,  and  sending  out  "  public  ora- 
tors "  to  deliver  them  to  the  people.  They  have 
also  used  the  local  newspapers  extensively  for 
their  educational  work ;  and  they  have  sent  out 
the  provincial  police  to  make  lists  of  all  opium- 
smokers,  post  their  names  on  the  outside  of  their 
houses,  and  make  certain  that  they  will  be  de- 
barred from  all  public  employment  and  from 
posts  of  honour.  The  chief  commissioner,  Tso, 
declares  that  he  will  clear  Chen-tu,  the  provincial 
capital,  a  city  of  400,000  inhabitants,  of  opium 
within  four  years ;  and  no  one  seems  to  doubt 
that  he  will  do  it  as  effectively  as  he  has  cleared 
the  streets  of  the  beggars  for  which  Chen-tu  was 
formerly  notorious.  When  Mr.  J.  G.  Alexander, 
of  the  British  Anti-Opium  Society,  was  in  Chen-tu 
last  year,  this  same  Commissioner  Tso  called  a 


192  Drugging  a  Nation 

mass-meeting  for  him,  at  which  the  native  officials 
and  gentry  sat  on  the  platform  with  representa- 
tives of  the  missionary  societies,  and  ten  thou- 
sand Chinese  crowded  about  to  hear  Mr.  Alex- 
ander's address. 

The  most  disappointing  region  in  the  matter 
of  the  opium  prohibition  is  the  upper  Yangtse 
Valley.  In  the  lower  valley,  from  Nanking 
down  to  Soochow  and  Shanghai  (native  city), 
the  enforcement  ranges  from  partial  to  complete. 
But  in  the  upper  valley,  from  Nanking  to  Han- 
kow and  above,  I  could  not  find  the  slightest 
evidence  of  enforcement.  At  the  river  ports  the 
dens  were  running  openly,  many  of  them  with 
doors  opening  directly  off  the  street  and  with 
smokers  visible  on  the  couches  within.  The 
viceroy  of  the  upper  Yangtse  provinces,  Chang- 
chi-tung,  "  the  Great  Viceroy,"  has  been  recog- 
nized for  a  generation  as  one  of  China's  most 
advanced  thinkers  and  reformers.  His  book, 
"  China's  Only  Hope,"  has  been  translated  into 
many  languages,  and  is  recognized  as  the  most 
eloquent  analysis  of  China's  problems  ever  made 
by  Chinese  or  Manchu.  In  it  he  is  flatly  on 
record  against  opium.  Indeed,  when  governor 
of  Shansi,  twenty  odd  years  ago,  this  same  offi- 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        193 

cial  sent  out  his  soldiers  to  beat  down  the  poppy 
crop.  Yet  it  was  in  this  viceroyalty  alone, 
among  all  the  larger  subdivisions  of  China,  that 
there  was  no  evidence  whatever  last  year  of  an 
intention  to  enforce  the  anti- opium  edicts.  The 
only  explanation  of  this  state  of  things  seems  to 
be  that  Chang-chi-tung  is  now  a  very  old  man, 
and  that  to  a  great  extent  he  has  lost  his  vigour 
and  his  grip  on  his  work.  Whatever  the  reason, 
this  fact  has  been  used  with  telling  effect  in  pro- 
opium  arguments  in  the  British  Parliament  as  an 
illustration  of  China's  "  insincerity." 

The  situation  seems  to  sum  up  about  as  fol- 
lows :  The  prohibition  of  opium  was  immedi- 
ately effective  over  about  one-quarter  of  China, 
and  partially  effective  over  about  two-thirds. 
This,  it  has  seemed  to  me,  considering  the  diffi- 
culty and  immensity  of  the  problem,  is  an  extra- 
ordinary record.  Every  opium  den  actually 
closed  in  China  represents  a  victory.  Whether 
the  dens  will  stay  closed,  after  the  first  frenzy 
of  reform  has  passed,  or  whether  the  prohibition 
movement  will  gain  in  strength  and  effectiveness, 
time  alone  will  tell.  But  there  is  an  ancient  pop- 
ular saying  in  China  to  this  effect,  "  Do  not  fear 
to  go  slowly ;  fear  to  stop." 


194  Drugging  a  Nation 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  while  the  Chinese  are 
fighting  the  opium  evil  earnestly,  and  in  part  ef- 
fectively, they  are  still  some  little  way  short  of 
conquering  it.  Also,  we  must  not  forget,  that  all 
reforms  are  strongest  in  their  beginnings.  The 
Chinese,  no  less  than  the  rest  of  us,  will  take  up 
a  moral  issue  in  a  burst  of  enthusiasm.  But 
human  beings  cannot  continue  indefinitely  in  a 
bursting  condition.  Reaction  must  always  follow 
extraordinary  exertion,  and  it  is  then  that  the 
habits  of  life  regain  their  ascendency.  Remark- 
able as  this  reform  battle  has  been  in  its  results, 
it  certainly  cannot  show  a  complete,  or  even  a 
half-complete,  victory  over  the  brown  drug. 
And  meantime  the  government  of  British  India 
is  pouring  four-fifths  of  its  immense  opium  pro- 
duction into  China  by  way  of  Hongkong  and  the 
treaty  ports.  It  should  be  added,  further,  that 
while  the  various  self-governing  ports,  excepting 
Shanghai,  have  very  recently  been  forced,  one  by 
one,  to  cover  up  at  least  the  appearance  of  evil, 
the  crown  colony  of  Hongkong,  which  is  under 
the  direct  rule  of  Great  Britain,  is  still  clinging 
doggedly  to  its  opium  revenues.  The  whole 
miserable  business  was  summed  up  thus  in  a 
recent  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons : 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        195 

« The  mischief  is  in  China ;  the  money  is  in 
India." 

What  is  Great  Britain  doing  to  help  China  ? 
His  Majesty's  government  has  indulged  in  a  reso- 
lution now  and  then,  has  expressed  diplomatic 
"  sympathy "  with  its  yellow  victims,  and  has 
even  "  urged  "  India  in  the  matter,  but  is  it  really 
doing  anything  to  help  ? 

There  are  reasons  why  the  world  has  a  right 
to  ask  this  question. 

If  China  is  to  grow  weaker,  she  must  ulti- 
mately submit  to  conquest  by  foreign  powers. 
There  are  nine  or  ten  of  these  powers  which  have 
some  sort  of  a  footing  in  China.  No  one  of 
them  trusts  any  one  of  the  others,  therefore  each 
must  be  prepared  to  fight  in  defense  of  its  own 
interests.  It  is  not  safe  to  tempt  great  commer- 
cial nations  with  a  prize  so  rich  as  China  ;  they 
might  yield.  Once  this  conquest,  this  "  parti- 
tion," sets  in,  there  can  result  nothing  but  chaos 
and  world-wide  trouble. 

The  trend  of  events  is  to-day  in  the  direction  of 
this  world-wide  trouble.  The  only  apparent  way 
to  head  it  off  is  to  begin  strengthening  China  to 
a  point  where  she  can  defend  herself  against  con- 
quest. The  first  step  in  this  strengthening  proc- 


196  Drugging  a  Nation 

ess  is  the  putting  down  of  opium — there  is  no 
other  first  step.  Before  you  can  put  down 
*  opium,  you  have  got  to  stop  opium  production 
in  India.  And  therefore  the  Anglo-Indian 
opium  business  is  not  England's  business,  but 
the  world's  business.  The  world  is  to-day  pay- 
ing the  cost  of  this  highly  expensive  luxury 
along  with  China.  Every  sallow  morphine  vic- 
tim on  the  streets  of  San  Francisco,  Chicago, 
and  New  York  is  helping  to  pay  for  this  govern- 
ment traffic  in  vice. 

But  is  Great  Britain  planning  to  help  China? 

The  government  of  the  British  empire  is  at 
present  in  the  hands  of  the  Liberal  party,  which 
has  within  it  a  strong  reform  element.  From  the 
Tory  party  nothing  could  be  expected;  it  has 
always  worshipped  the  Things  that  Are,  and  it 
has  always  defended  the  opium  traffic.  If  either 
party  is  to  work  this  change,  it  must  be  that  one 
which  now  holds  the  reins  of  power.  And  yet, 
after  generations  of  fighting  against  the  govern- 
ment opium  industry  on  the  part  of  all  the  reform 
organizations  in  England,  after  Parliament  has 
twice  been  driven  to  vote  a  resolution  condemn- 
ing the  traffic,  after  generations  of  statesmen, 
from  Palmerston  through  Gladstone  to  John 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        197 

Morley,  have  held  out  assurances  of  a  change, 
after  the  Chinese  government,  tired  of  waiting  on 
England,  has  begun  the  struggle,  this  is  the  final 
concession  on  England's  part : 

The  British  government  has  agreed  to  decrease 
the  exportation  of  Indian  opium  about  eight  per 
cent,  per  year  during  a  trial  period  of  three  years, 
in  order  to  see  whether  the  cultivation  of  the 
poppy  and  the  number  of  opium-smokers  is  les- 
sened. Should  such  be  the  case,  exportation  to 
China  will  be  further  decreased  gradually. 

The  reader  will  observe  here  some  very  pretty 
diplomatic  juggling.  There  is  here  none  of  the 
spirit  which  animated  the  United  States  last  year 
in  proposing  voluntarily  to  give  up  a  consider- 
able part  of  its  indemnity  money.  The  British 
government  is  yielding  to  a  tremendous  popular 
clamour  at  home ;  but  nothing  more.  Could  a 
government  offer  less  by  way  of  carrying  out  the 
conviction  of  a  national  parliament  to  the  effect 
that "  the  methods  by  which  our  Indian  opium 
revenues  are  derived  are  morally  indefensible  "  ? 
The  English  people  are  urging  their  government, 
the  Chinese  are  diplomatically  putting  on  pres- 
sure, the  United  States  is  organizing  an  interna- 
tional opium  commission  on  the  ground  that  the 


198  Drugging  a  Nation 

nations  which  consume  Indian  and  Chinese 
opium  have,  willy-nilly,  a  finger  in  the  pie. 
And  by  way  of  response  to  this  pressure  the 
British  government  agrees  to  lessen  very  slightly 
its  export  for  a  few  years,  or  until  the  pressure  is 
removed  and  the  trade  can  slip  back  to  normal ! 

There  are  not  even  assurances  that  the  agree- 
ment will  be  carried  out.  While  this  very  agita- 
tion has  been  going  on,  since  these  chapters 
began  to  appear  in  Success  Magazine,  the  an- 
nual export  of  Bengal  opium  has  increased 
(1906-1908)  from  96,688  chests  to  101,588 
chests.  And  it  is  well  to  remember  that  after 
Mr.  Gladstone,  as  prime  minister,  had  given  as- 
surances of  a  "  great  reduction  "  in  the  traffic,  the 
officials  of  India  admitted  that  they  had  not  heard 
of  any  such  reduction. 

A  few  months  ago,  the  Government  issued  a 
"  White  Paper "  containing  the  correspondence 
with  China  on  the  opium  question,  so  that  there 
is  no  dependence  on  hearsay  in  this  arraignment 
of  the  British  attitude.  Let  us  glance  at  an  ex- 
cerpt or  two  from  these  official  British  letters. 
This,  for  example : 

"  The  Chinese  proposal,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  involves  extinction  of  the  import  in  nine 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        199 

years,  would  commit  India  irrevocably,  and  in 
advance  of  experience,  to  the  complete  suppres- 
sion of  an  important  trade,  and  goes  beyond  the 
underlying  condition  of  the  scheme,  that  restric- 
tion of  import  from  abroad,  and  reduction  of  pro- 
duction in  China,  shall  be  brought  pari  passu  into 
play." 

Not  content  with  this  rather  sordid  expression, 
His  Majesty's  Government  goes  on  to  point  out 
that,  under  existing  treaties,  China  cannot  refuse 
to  admit  Indian  opium ;  that  China  cannot  even 
increase  the  import  duty  on  Indian  opium  with- 
out the  permission  of  Great  Britain  ;  that  before 
Great  Britain  will  consider  the  question  of  per- 
manently reducing  her  production  China  must 
prove  that  the  number  of  her  smokers  has  dimin- 
ished ;  that  the  opium  traffic  is  to  be  continued 
at  least  for  another  ten  years ;  and  then  indulges 
in  this  superb  deliverance : 

The  proposed  limitation  of  the  export  to 
60,000  chests  from  1908  is  thought  to  be  a  very 
substantial  reduction  on  this  figure,  and  the  view 
of  the  Government  of  India  is  that  such  a  standard 
ought  to  satisfy  the  Chinese  Government  for  the 
present. 

Even  by  their  own  estimate,  after  taking  out 


2oo  Drugging  a  Nation 

the  proposed  total  decrease  of  15,300  chests  in 
the  Chinese  trade,  the  Indian  Government  will, 
during  the  next  three  years,  unload  more  than 
170,000  chests  of  opium  on  a  race  which  it  has 
brought  to  degradation,  which  is  to-day  strug- 
gling to  overcome  demoralization,  and  which  is 
appealing  to  England  and  to  the  whole  civilized 
world  for  aid  in  the  unequal  contest. 

We  must  try  to  be  fair  to  the  gentlemen-offi- 
cials who  see  the  situation  only  in  this  curious 
half-light.  "  It  is  a  practical  question,"  they  say. 
"  The  law  of  trade  is  the  balance-sheet.  It  is  not 
our  fault  as  individuals  that  opium,  the  com- 
modity, was  launched  out  into  the  channels  of 
trade ;  but  since  it  is  now  in  those  channels,  the 
law  of  trade  must  rule,  the  balance-sheet  must 
balance.  Opium  means  $20,000,000  a  year  to 
the  Indian  Government — we  cannot  give  it  up." 

The  real  question  would  seem  to  be  whether 
they  can  afford  to  continue  receiving  this 
revenue.  Opium  does  not  appear  to  be  a  very 
valuable  commodity  in  India  itself.  Just  as  in 
China,  it  degrades  the  people.  The  profits  in 
production,  for  everybody  but  the  government, 
are  so  small  that  the  strong  hand  of  the  law  has 
often,  nowadays,  to  be  exerted  in  order  to  keep 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        20 1 

the  ryots  (farmers)  at  the  task  of  raising  the 
poppy.  There  are  many  thoughtful  observers  of 
conditions  in  India  who  believe  it  would  be 
highly  "  practical "  to  devote  the  rich  soil  of  the 
Ganges  Valley  to  crops  which  have  a  sound 
economic  value  to  the  world. 

But  more  than  this,  the  opium  programme  saps 
India  as  it  saps  China.  The  position  of  the 
Englishman  in  India  to-day  is  by  no  means  so 
secure  that  he  can  afford  to  indulge  in  bad 
government.  The  spirit  of  democracy  and 
socialism  has  already  spread  through  Europe 
and  has  entered  Asia.  In  Japan,  trade-unions 
are  striking  for  higher  wages.  In  China  and 
India,  are  already  heard  the  mutterings  of  revolu- 
tion. The  British  government  may  yet  have  to 
settle  up,  in  India  as  well  as  in  China,  for  its 
opium  policy.  And  when  the  day  for  settling  up 
comes,  it  may  perhaps  be  found  that  a  higher 
balance-sheet  than  that  which  rules  the  govern- 
ment opium  industry  may  force  Great  Britain  to 
pay — and  pay  dear. 

Yes,  the  world  has  some  right  to  make  de- 
mands of  England  in  this  matter.  China  can  make 
no  real  progress  in  its  struggle  until  the  Indian 
production  and  exportation  are  flatly  abolished. 


2O2  Drugging  a  Nation 

The  situation  has  distinctly  not  grown  better 
since  the  magazine  publication  of  the  first  of 
these  chapters,  a  year  ago.  If  the  reader  would 
like  to  have  an  idea  of  where  Great  Britain 
stands  to-day  on  the  opium  business,  he  can  do 
no  better  than  to  read  the  following  excerpts 
from  a  speech  made  last  spring  by  the  Hon. 
Theodore  C.  Taylor,  M.  P.,  on  his  return  from  a 
journey  round  the  world,  undertaken  for  the  pur- 
pose of  personally  investigating  the  opium  problem. 

First,  this : 

"  We  shall  not  begin  to  have  the  slightest  right 
to  ask  that  China  should  give  proof  of  her 
genuineness  about  reform  until  we  show  more 
proof  of  our  own  genuineness  about  reform,  and 
until  we  suppress  the  opium  traffic  where  we 
can.  China  has  taken  this  difficult  reform  in 
hand.  She  has  done  much,  but  not  everything. 
In  Shanghai,  Hongkong,  and  the  Straits,  we 
have  done  nothing  at  all.  I  want  to  say  this 
morning,  as  pricking  the  bubble  of  our  own 
Pharisaism,  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  re- 
form, the  blackest  opium  spots  in  China  are  the 
spots  under  British  rule." 

And  then,  in  conclusion,  this  : 

"  I    am  convinced,  and  deeply  convinced,  as 


The  Position  of  Great  Britain        203 

every  observant  and  thoughtful  man  is  that  knows 
anything  of  China,  that  China  is  a  great  coming 
power.  I  was  talking  to  a  fellow  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  who  lately  went  to  China, 
and  went  into  barracks  and  camps  with  the 
Chinese,  and  who  made  it  his  business  to  study 
Chinese  military  affairs,  which  generally  excite 
so  much  laughter  outside  China.  He  spent  a 
good  deal  of  time  with  the  Chinese  soldier.  He 
said  to  me,  as  many  other  people  have  said  to 
me,  '  The  Chinaman  is  splendid  raw  material  as 
a  soldier,  and,  if  his  officers  would  properly  lead 
the  Chinaman,  he  would  follow  and  make  the 
finest  soldier  in  the  world,  bar  none.'  It  will 
take  China  a  long,  long  time  to  organize  herself; 
it  will  take  her  a  long  time  to  organize  her  army 
and  navy ;  it  will  take  a  long  time  to  get  rid  of 
the  system  of  bribery  in  China,  which  is  one  of 
the  hindrances  to  putting  down  the  opium 
traffic ;  but,  depend  upon  it,  the  time  is  coming, 
not  perhaps  very  soon,  but  by  and  by — and  nations 
have  long  memories — when  those  who  are  alive 
to  see  the  development  of  China  will  be  very  glad 
that,  when  China  was  weak  and  we  were  strong,  we, 
of  our  own  motion,  without  being  made  to,  helped 
China  to  get  away  from  this  terrible  curse." 


Appendix — A  Letter  from  the  Field 
THE  OPIUM  CLIMAX  IN  SHANGHAI 

Editor  "Success  Magazine"  : 

IT  is  fitting  that  in  the  columns  of  Success, 
a  magazine  which  has  so  recently  investigated  and 
so  thoroughly  and  ably  reported  upon  the  opium 
curse  in  China,  there  should  appear  the  account  of  a 
unique  ceremony  held  in  the  International  Settlement 
of  Shanghai,  illustrating  in  a  striking  manner  the 
general  feeling  of  the  Chinese  towards  the  anti-opium 
movement  and  setting  an  example  that  will  make  its 
influence  felt  in  the  most  remote  provinces  of  the 
empire.  In  response  to  liberal  advertising  there 
assembled  in  the  spacious  grounds  of  Chang  Su  Ho's 
Gardens,  on  the  afternoon  of  Sunday,  May  3,  1908, 
some  two  or  three  thousand  of  Shanghai's  leading 
Chinese  business  men,  together  with  a  goodly  sprink- 
ling of  Europeans  and  Americans,  to  witness  the 
destruction  of  the  opium-pipes,  lamps,  etc.,  taken 
from  the  Nan  Sun  Zin  Opium  Palace.  In  America, 
such  a  scene  as  this  would  have  appeared  little  less 
than  a  farce,  but  here  the  obvious  earnestness  of  the 
Chinese,  the  great  value  of  the  property  to  be  des- 
troyed and  the  deep  meaning  of  this  sacrifice,  should 
have  been  sufficient  to  put  the  blush  of  shame  upon 
the  cheeks  of  the  Shanghai  voters  and  councilmen, 
204 


Appendix  205 

who,  representing  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  the 
earth,  have  compromised  with  the  opium  evil  and 
permitted  three-fourths  of  this  nefarious  business  to 
linger  in  the  "Model  Settlement "  when  it  has  been 
so  summarily  dealt  with  by  the  native  authorities 
throughout  the  land. 

Within  a  roped-in,  circular  enclosure,  marked  by 
two  large,  yellow  Dragon-Flags,  were  stacked  the 
furnishings  of  the  Opium  Palace,  consisting  of  opium 
boxes,  pipes,  lamps,  tables,  trays,  etc.,  and  as  the 
spectators  arrived  the  work  of  destruction  was  going 
rapidly  on.  Two  native  blacksmiths  were  busily  en- 
gaged in  splitting  on  an  anvil  the  metal  fittings  from 
the  pipes,  and  a  brawny  coolie,  armed  with  a  sledge- 
hammer, was  driving  flat  the  artistic  opium  lamps  as 
they  were  taken  from  the  tables  and  placed  on  the 
ground  before  him.  Meanwhile  the  pipes,  mellowed 
and  blackened  by  long  use  and  many  of  them  show- 
ing rare  workmanship,  were  dipped  into  a  large  tin  of 
kerosine  and  stacked  in  two  piles  on  stone  bases,  to 
form  the  funeral  pyre,  while  the  center  of  each  stack 
was  filled  in  with  kindling  from  the  opium  trays, 
similarly  soaked  with  oil.  On  one  of  the  tables  within 
the  enclosure  were  two  small  trays,  each  containing  a 
complete  smoking  outfit  and  a  written  sheet  of  paper 
announcing  that  these  were  the  offerings  of  Mr.  Lien 
Yue  Ming,  manager  of  the  East  Asiatic  Dispensary, 
and  Miss  Kua  Kuei  Yen,  a  singing  girl,  respectively. 
Both  these  quondam  smokers  sent  in  their  apparatus 
to  be  burned,  with  a  pledge  that  henceforth  they 
would  abstain  from  the  use  of  the  drug. 

During  the  preparations  for  the  burning,  Mr.  Sun 


206  Appendix 

Ching  Foong,  a  prominent  business  man,  delivered  a 
powerful  exhortation  on  the  opium  evil  to  the  en- 
thusiastic multitude  and  introduced  the  leading 
speaker  of  the  afternoon,  Mr.  Wong  Ching  Foo, 
representing  the  Committee  of  the  Commercial  Bazaar. 
Mr.  Wong  spoke  in  the  Mandarin  language  and  stated 
that  all  of  China  was  looking  to  Shanghai  for  a  lead  in 
the  matter  of  suppressing  opium  and  that  it  was  with 
great  pleasure  the  committee  had  noticed  the  earnest  de- 
sire of  the  foreign  Municipal  Council  (and  he  was  not 
intending  to  be  sarcastic  /)  to  assist  the  Chinese  in  their 
endeavour  to  do  away  entirely  with  this  traffic.  It 
was  a  very  commendable  effort,  and  he  was  sure  the 
foreigners  there  would  agree  that  no  effort  on  their 
part  could  be  too  strong  to  do  away  with  this  curse, 
which  was  not  only  undermining  the  best  intellects  of 
Ctiina,  but  by  the  example  of  parents  was  affecting 
seriously  the  rising  generation.  To-day  a  gentleman, 
who  had  been  a  smoker  for  twenty-nine  years  and  had 
realized  the  great  harm  it  had  done  him,  was  present, 
and  had  brought  with  him  his  opium  utensils  to  be 
destroyed  with  those  from  the  opium  saloons  of 
French-town.  The  Nan  Sun  Zin  Opium  Palace,  from 
which  the  pipes  and  other  opium  utensils  had  been 
brought  for  destruction,  was  the  largest  in  Shanghai 
and,  he  had  heard,  the  largest  in  China,  patronized 
by  the  most  notable  people.  The  example  of  Shang- 
hai was  felt  in  Nanking,  Peking,  and  all  over  China, 
for  the  young  men  who  visited  here  took  with  them 
the  report  of  the  pleasures  they  saw  practiced  in  this 
settlement  and  thus  gave  the  natives  different  ideas. 
These  young  men  often  came  here  to  see  the  wonder- 


Appendix  207 

ful  work  accomplished  by  foreigners,  and  it  was  not 
right  that  they  should  take  this  curse  back  with  them. 
It  had  been  originally  intended  to  burn  also  the  chairs 
and  tables  from  the  palace,  but  as  this  would  make 
too  large  and  dangerous  a  fire  it  had  been  decided  to 
sell  these  and  use  the  proceeds  for  the  furtherance  of 
the  anti-opium  movement. 

Among  the  pipes  were  some  for  which  $500  had 
been  offered,  but  the  Committee  of  the  Commercial 
Bazaar  had  purchased  the  whole  outfit  to  destroy,  and 
they  hoped  to  be  able  to  buy  up  a  good  many  more  of 
the  palaces  and  thus  utterly  destroy  all  traces  of  the 
opium-smoking  practice.  Mr.  Wong  remarked  that 
China  had  recently  been  under  a  cloud  and  in  Shang- 
hai there  had  been  protracted  rains,  but  to-day  it  was 
fine  and  it  was  evident  that  heaven  was  looking  down 
upon  them  and  blessing  their  efforts.  With  heaven's 
blessing  they  would  be  able  to  overcome  the  curse  and 
be  even  quicker  than  the  Municipal  Council  in  com- 
pletely wiping  out  this  abominable  custom. 

As  the  speeches  were  concluded,  the  Chinese 
Volunteer  Band  struck  up  a  lively  air  and  amid  the 
deafening  din  of  crackers  and  bombs  a  torch  was  ap- 
plied to  the  oil-soaked  stacks  of  pipes  which  at  once 
burned  up  fiercely.  Extra  oil  was  thrown  upon  the 
flames  and  the  glass  lamp-covers,  bowls,  etc.,  were 
heaped  upon  the  flames,  thus  completing  a  ceremony 
full  of  earnestness  and  meaning. 

It  has  come  as  a  matter  of  great  surprise  to  many 
sceptical  foreigners  that  the  Chinese  should  be  making 
such  strenuous  efforts  to  do  away  with  the  opium- 
smoking  curse.  Not  a  few  have  thrown  cold  water 


2o8  Appendix 

upon  the  scheme,  sneered  at  the  Chinese  in  this  en- 
deavour, and  doubted  both  their  desire  and  ability  to 
suppress  the  sale  of  opium.  The  Commercial  Bazaar 
Committee,  consisting  of  well-known  Chinese  business 
men,  is  not  only  seconding  the  Municipal  Council  in 
its  gradual  withdrawal  of  licenses  in  the  foreign  settle- 
ments but  has  also  accomplished  the  closing  of  many 
opium  dens  through  its  own  efforts  by  bringing  pres- 
sure to  bear  upon  the  owners  of  the  dens.  Already, 
many  private  individuals  have  given  up  their  beloved 
pipes  and  some  dens  have  voluntarily  closed.  It  has 
also  been  agreed  by  the  Chinese  concerned  that  all  of 
the  shops  run  by  women  are  to  cease  the  sale  of  opium. 
This  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Chinese  themselves  is 
a  striking  rebuke  to  those  who  cast  suspicion  upon  the 
honesty  of  purpose  of  both  the  Chinese  government 
and  people,  refusing  to  immediately  abolish  the  opium 
licenses  in  the  foreign  settlements  of  Shanghai,  despite 
the  appeals  from  the  American,  British,  and  Japanese 
governments,  the  petitions  of  the  leading  Chinese  of  the 
place  and  the  general  popularity  of  the  anti-opium 
movement.  Yielding  to  great  pressure  from  all  sides, 
the  Shanghai  Municipal  Council  did  consent  to  intro- 
duce a  resolution  upon  this  question  before  the  Rate- 
payers Meeting  to  be  held  March  2oth,  but  the  con- 
cession made  was  small  indeed  compared  with  what 
was  generally  desired  or  what  might  be  anticipated 
from  the  leading  lights  of  "civilized  and  highly 
moral "  nations.  The  resolution  was  as  follows  : — 

"Resolution  VI.  That  the  number  of  licensed 
opium  houses  be  reduced  by  one-quarter  from  July  i, 
1908,  or  from  such  other  early  date  and  in  such  man- 


Appendix  209 

ner  as  may  appear  advisable  to  the  Council  for  1908- 
1909." 

While  there  was  in  this  a  definite  reduction  of  one- 
fourth  of  the  opium-joints  in  the  settlement,  there  was 
nothing  definite  as  to  any  future  policy,  though  the 
implication  was  that  the  houses  would  be  all  closed 
within  a  period  of  two  years.  In  his  speech  introduc- 
ing this  resolution  before  the  ratepayers,  the  British 
chairman  of  the  council  said,  among  other  things, 
"  I  feel  sure  that  every  one  of  us  has  the  greatest  sym- 
pathy with  the  Chinese  nation  in  its  effort  to  dissipate 
the  opium  habit,  but  we  are  not  unfamiliar  with 
Chinese  official  procedure,  and  how  far  short  actual 
administrative  results  fall  when  compared  with  the 
official  pronouncements  that  precede  them.  It  is  im- 
possible not  to  be  sceptical  as  to  the  intentions  of  the 
Chinese  government  with  regard  to  this  matter,  al- 
though on  this  occasion  we  quite  recognize  that  many 
officials  are  sincere  in  their  desire  to  eradicate  the 
opium  evil,  and  I  am  sure  there  is  every  intention  on 
the  part  of  this  community  to  assist  them.  Yet  we 
know  of  no  programme  that  they  have  drawn  up  to 
make  this  great  reform  possible,  if  indeed  they  have  a 
programme.  .  .  .  The  absence  of  these,  so  to 
speak,  first  business  essentials,  on  the  part  of  the 
Chinese  government,  was  among  the  reasons  which  led 
us  to  the  view  that  the  settlement  was  called  upon  to 
do  little  more  than  continue  its  work  of  supervision 
over  opium  licenses,  and  wait  for  the  cessation  of  sup- 
plies of  the  drug  to  render  that  supervision  unneces- 
sary. .  .  .  The  advice  we  have  received  from 
the  British  Government  is,  in  brief,  that  we  should  do 


2lo  Appendix 

more  than  keep  pace  with  the  native  authorities,  we 
should  be  in  advance  of  them  and  where  possible  en- 
courage them  to  follow  us." 

In  the  following  quotations  from  a  letter  written  by 
Dr.  DuBose,  of  Soochow,  President  of  the  Anti-Opium 
League,  to  the  municipal  council,  the  attitude  of  the 
reformers  is  clearly  shown. 

"  The  prohibition  of  opium-smoking  is  the  greatest 
reformation  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  its  benefits 
are  already  patent.  Let  the  ratepayers  effectually 
second  the  efforts  being  made  by  the  Chinese  govern- 
ment to  abolish  the  use  of  opium  throughout  the  empire. 

"  It  has  proved  a  peaceful  reformation.  In  the 
cities  and  towns  about  one-half  million  dens,  at  the 
expiration  of  six  months,  were  closed  promptly  with- 
out resistance  or  complaint.  The  government  will 
grant  all  the  necessary  privileges  of  inspection  to  the 
municipal  police  in  the  prevention  of  illicit  smoking. 

"  The  consumption  of  opium  in  the  cities  has 
fallen  off  thirty  per  cent. ;  in  the  towns  fifty  per  cent. ; 
while  in  the  rural  districts  in  the  eastern  and  middle 
provinces  it  is  reduced  to  a  minimum.  It  is  well  for 
Shanghai  to  be  allied  with  Soochow,  Hangchow,  and 
Nanking,  and  not  to  permit  itself  to  be  a  refuge  for 
bad  men. 

"  The  Chinese  merchants  in  the  International 
Settlement  have  sent  in  earnest  appeals  to  the  Council 
on  this  question.  As  friends  of  China,  might  not  the 
ratepayers  give  their  appeals  a  courteous  considera- 
tion ? 

"  The  question  of  opium  at  the  Annual  Meeting 
commands  world-wide  attention  and  Saturday's  papers 


Appendix  211 

throughout  Christendom  will  bear  record  of  and  com- 
ment upon  the  action. 

"  To  close  the  dens  is  right.  Shanghai  cannot 
afford  to  be  the  black  spot  on  Kiangsu's  map.  Opium 
delendum  est. 

"  In  behalf  of  the  Anti-Opium  League, 

"  HAMPDEN  C.  DuBosE,  President" 

The  appeals  from  Great  Britain,  America,  China,  and 
Japan,  like  the  petitions  of  merchants,  missionaries, 
and  officials,  were  without  effect.  The  "vested  in- 
terests ' '  carried  the  day,  and  a  resolution,  ordering 
the  closing  of  the  dens  on  or  before  the  end  of 
December,  1909,  was  lost  by  a  vote  of  128  to  189,  the 
council,  as  usual,  influencing  and  controlling  the  votes 
and  carrying  the  original  motion — the  only  concession 
it  would  grant  to  this  gigantic  movement. 

Another  surprise  came  to  the  cynical  foreigner, 
when,  on  April  i8th,  the  whole  of  the  opium  licensees 
participated  in  a  public  drawing  in  the  town  hall,  to 
decide  by  lottery  which  establishments  should  be  shut 
down  on  the  ist  of  July,  numbering  one-fourth  of  the 
total  number,  this  method  being  adopted  by  the 
council  to  avoid  any  suspicion  of  partiality  in  the 
selection.  The  keepers  of  the  dens  cheerfully 
acquiesced  in  the  proposal,  the  sporting  chance  no 
doubt  appealing  to  the  gambling  spirit  for  which  they 
are  noted,  and  in  the  town  hall  this  remarkable 
drawing  was  held  without  any  sign  of  disfavour  or 
rowdyism.  The  keepers  of  the  Shanghai  opium  shops 
are  no  doubt  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  feeling  of 
the  native  community  is  entirely  against  the  retention 


212  Appendix 

of  these  places  and  are  ready  to  bow  to  the  inevitable. 
None  of  the  trouble  or  rioting  feared  by  the  Council, 
materialized,  and  it  is  certain  that  the  entire  list  of 
licenses  might  have  been  immediately  revoked  without 
disturbance  of  any  kind — and  without  protest.  Three 
hundred  and  fifty-nine  licenses  thus  cease  with  the 
end  of  June,  and  it  is  doubtful,  with  the  present  spirit 
manifest  in  the  Chinese,  that  such  another  drawing 
will  be  necessary  at  all.  The  funeral  pyre  of  opium- 
pipes,  we  trust,  marks  the  end,  or  the  immediate  begin- 
ning of  the  end,  of  Shanghai's  reproach,  and  it  is 
distinctly  to  the  credit  of  the  500,000  Chinese  living 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  this  foreign  community,  that 
they  themselves  are  taking  the  lead  in  wiping  out 
this  stain  on  the  "  Model  Settlement  " — doing  what 
the  foreigner  dared  not  and  the  "vested  interest" 
would  not  do. 

CHARLES  F.  GAMMON. 


MISSIONARY— TRAVELS 


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Illustrated,  net,  750.  H.  0.  UNDERWOOD 

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kn   A  Collection  of  Sketches  and  Anecdotes, 
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Illustrated,  net,  $1.25-  HORACE  N.  ALLEN 

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From  a  Doctor's  Viewpoint. 
Illustrated,  net,  $1.00.  ELLIOTT  I.  OSOOOD 

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The  New  Horoscope  oi  Missions 

Net,  $i.co.  JAMES  S.  DENNIS 

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aims  to  give.  The  book  is  made  up  of  lectures  delivered  at 
the  McCormick  Theological  Seminary  on  The  John  H.  Con- 
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With  Introductory  Biographical  Sketch  by  Henry  N.Cobb  ,D.D. 
Net,  $1.50.  JACOB  CHAMBERLAIN 

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Illustrated,  net,  $1.00.  W.  QRINTON  BERRY 

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